i'm not a part of your machine
by soul-of-spades
Summary: Terminator Salvation AU. As the daughter of the resistance, Maka is desperate to prove herself in humanity's war against machines. So when a mission in enemy territory goes awry because of a mistake she made, guilt pushes her down a dangerous path. One that ends with a choice: trust someone she loves, or destroy a potential threat to her resistance. (Resbang 2019)
1. Chapter 1

A distorted gurgle echoes down the road, too metallic to be anything human.

She can hear the gusting wind keeping it afloat, see the sand start to whisk down the street in their direction. She risks a glance around the brick corner. Its reflection shows in the shop window across the street - a hovering black shadow with a glowing red eye poking out the bottom.

"Hey, Maka," Blake says from behind, his breath frisking her ear. "Your Pops said to keep a low profile."

Maka's eyes nearly roll out of her head. "Since when do you keep a low profile?"

She gestures to, first, his wild blue hair - he found blue hair dye a few months back at a Sally Beauty store, which she never lets him live down because seriously, Unicorn Hair - and then to his sleeveless studded jean jacket and black tank top with his obnoxious blue star branding splattered on the front. She glides over his white track pants and stops at his obnoxious high tops with star doodles in permanent marker done on them, realizing she'd just gestured to all of him. All of him screams attention-hog. He is the antithesis of low profile.

He's trying to get the rest of the team to call him Black Star, for fuck's sake. Some people do, much to his delight. Helps that he sometimes refuses to give his real name when people ask - "If it's really the end of the world, why not start over? Black Star sounds a lot more kickass than 'Blake'" he said, the self-absorbed prick.

Maka stands her ground and religiously calls him Blake. She knew him back before Judgment Day, when they were just naive children on the playground and couldn't have possibly imagined a future where being hunted by machines is the norm. Boy, how times have changed.

"You're just jealous 'cause I got style and you don't," he says matter-of-factly. Her face, plain white t-shirt, and ripped blue jeans all gawk at him, clearly offended. "'Sides, it's just a scouting drone. If it doesn't find anything, it moves on. Just let it go."

"It's too close," she argues, thinking of their desert bunker only a few miles outside the city. They're only on the outskirts - most of the machines gravitate toward the city's middle, weeding out survivors hiding out in abandoned buildings - and this scouting drone feels too close to home.

Home . The underground bunker is a little rough around the edges and doesn't bode well for the average claustrophobic - Liz and all her pent-up paranoia hardly fit in there, as is - but it's the closest thing to a "home" Maka's had since Judgment Day. All her friends and her father - the resistance, her family - lives there. She isn't ready to lose it.

"We're not here to fight."

Look at him, pretending to be the voice of reason. The air of maturity surrounding him now doesn't suit him. Blake is a man of bad jokes, questionable style choices, and junk-grabbing howls. He is a wild child to his core. Perhaps Tsubaki - his maybe not , maybe so girlfriend - is really starting to rub off on him.

"Well, you're god awful at playing pacifist," she jabs, hoping to sway him to her favor. "You're an assassin , right? So, help me destroy this thing before it finds the bunker."

The com in her ear sparks to life. "Maka, Black Star has a point."

Ah, Tsubaki. Figures she'd take his side. She likes to shy away from danger and acts as the team's moral compass, mostly. But when a fight breaks out her skills in close combat are lethal. In her own words, she is a student of the blade - a katana that used to belong to her brother, she told Maka one night with a few drinks under her belt. Tsubaki once cleaved a terminator's head clean off in one swing, which must've been love at first sight for Blake. Maka imagines her watching them from a second-floor window. She spotted the drone first.

"I don't know. Maka's right, this drone is wandering into our territory. Destroying it could save us some trouble in the long run."

She could always count on Liz's all-consuming paranoia to back her up in a pinch. Aside from her hot-wired survival instincts, the skittish girl is surprisingly good with a rifle in her hands. Her aim is almost always true. Maka trusts her above anyone else to watch her back from the rooftops. She imagines Liz's crosshairs are trained on either her or the drone right now, watching, waiting for confirmation.

"Your Pops said no firefights. I don't make the rules, and neither do you, pipsqueak."

She silently curses him and his teenage growth spurt because life was so much easier when she was taller than him, damn it - especially in situations like this when he tries to disarm her with a tacky nickname that never fails to get under her skin. When he used to call her "tiny tits" back in the day, there was hell to pay.

Suddenly, the answer dawns on her, always within her grasp. Must've slipped through the cracks during Blake's feeble stab at acting "rationally," if that's even the right word for it. She could really use the old him, the Blake who took more risks and spat on the rules if they didn't work for him. Maka hasn't seen that version of him in a while.

"You're not running point."

His mouth drops into a frown.

"Papa put me in charge of this Op. You listen to me."

She says this more as a reminder to herself. For all his blabbering about playing it safe, Blake isn't the one calling the shots. He's used to being top dog, but not today. Papa handed her the reins to this search and rescue mission this morning. Nothing too risky, just checking on the outskirts for any survivors that slipped past inner-city machines. So really, it is her call.

"Maka…"

"Hand me your skateboard," she orders. The little wooden death trap with wheels - branded with a blue star, of course - hangs off his backpack, calling to her as an idea starts to come together in her mind.

"What?"

"Just do it."

"You heard the boss," Liz sing-songs over the com. "Cough it up."

Blake begrudgingly listens and hands it over. "Don't hurt her."

"Don't worry, I won't break it." That isn't the plan, anyway.

Maka places the board on the sidewalk and tests her footing on it, careful not to make too much noise. This type of drone is hyper-sensitive to movement more so than sound, but Skynet's machines are always evolving. She takes her pistol out of her gun belt holster - a gift from Papa - and brings it to her chest. She takes a deep breath.

"What are you doing?" Blake asks, but she ignores him.

Instead, Maka crouches down and lies on top of the board, stomach first, before flipping on her side. She takes another deep breath. The pistol shakes in her hands before settling, her finger resting on the trigger. This isn't the time to show fear, it's time to be brave.

"Maka, you need to think before you act," Tsubaki says, the angelic voice of reason. "This is dangerous."

This is war, Maka wants to say back, but it goes unsaid.

Suddenly, Blake catches on. What a shame that Tsubaki's intuition for bad decision-making didn't rub off on him, too.

His eyes are wide with panic. "Maka, don't -"

If you want something done right, do it yourself.

With one swift kick, Maka rolls across the crosswalk before Blake can grab her. The drone, hovering idly during her back-and-forth with her team, suddenly spurs to life. The railguns on its sides start to spin in her direction. Its sensors lock on to her movement and trajectory, its crosshairs marking her for death. But before it can rain bullets down on her she quickly lines up her shot and pulls the trigger.

The red bulb on its metal belly shatters like glass. Bullseye. The railguns start firing blindly with no all-seeing eye to guide them, twisting aimlessly in circles, but Maka is already shielded by the corner store's brick siding when they do.

"Take cover!" Blake yells, his voice booming down the block. "Shit's about to get wild!"

Maka ducks behind the brick and covers her head, hoping Liz, Tsubaki, and Blake all find cover in time. She doesn't want anymore blood on her hands. Countless faces stretch across her memory with a bloody smudge over each one, smiling unknowingly of their fates, and a chill crawls down her spine.

Not now. She still has to be brave. For the living. Their faces slowly fade away, because for them the fight is over. Hers isn't.

The drone screams like a banshee and starts laying waste to the city block. Maka covers her ears and braces herself against the brick wall as bullets fly carelessly through the air. Glass shatters, bullets ricochet off buildings, and the drone's alarms wail as the engine starts to overheat in its wild panic. A traffic light falls off its hinges and crashes in the middle of the street, spitting sparks. Bullet casings rattle and roll into the intersection.

Then, in the blink of an eye, all goes quiet. Too quiet.

"Maka, watch out!" cries Tsubaki and Liz in unison.

Maka barely rolls out of the way in time when the drone careens into the corner store and crashes through the window above the brick she hid behind. It plunges straight down into the asphalt, losing pieces of itself as it barrels down the street. When it finally stops, nestled into its own crater, she hears the engine gasp for life before turning into a dull hum. Then, nothing - the machine is dead.

"Well, shit," she says between labored breaths. Kind of hard to catch her breath between trigger-happy railguns and a spiraling drone nearly taking off her head. She swears close calls like these shave years off her life.

Tsubaki is the first to call out to her. "Maka, are you okay?"

"Y-Yes," she hiccups, embarrassed by how rattled she really is. "I'm fine. Just missed me."

Maka hears Blake before she sees him. "You. Are. A. Dumbass. Do you have a death wish?" His ridiculous Nike high tops make heavy thumps in her direction until he spontaneously appears by her side, pulling the skateboard out from underneath her in one fell swoop. She plops down on the pavement.

"H-Hey!" she yelps.

"That is debatable," quips Liz. "She acts like she wants to play martyr."

Tsubaki chips in, her voice a little shaky. "Maka, p-please. Don't ever scare us like that again."

Her team is chastising her for her carelessness, and some of what they say strike a nerve because she destroyed the damn thing, didn't she? But all Maka can think about is how thankful she is that everyone's still alive and talking. No faces to add to her death toll reel in her head.

"I had to do it," she answers, still trying to catch her breath. "It was too close." She couldn't wait on a vote - engage, or not to engage. She took matters into her own hands and now the bunker can live to see another day. Thanks to her.

Blake pulls her up roughly by the arm. "Yeah, yeah. Save the hero spiel for somebody who gives a shit. We gotta go."

"But the mission…"

The plan was to hop from building to building, clearing them as machine-free - without engaging - and taking in strays as they pop up, raiding for supplies when they could. The bunker is nearing capacity, but Sid, an army ammunitions expert in another life, swears expansion is possible.

This fight is for the living, Papa would say, we need to help in any way we can.

His words sounded so brave and honorable when she was just thirteen and Judgment Day was still fresh in her mind. Now she's twenty-three and his countless affairs with any woman he can charm into his pants has eroded away that heroic pedestal. To think, how would the scattered resistance react if they found out "mankind's last hope" was such a horndog?

"Should've thought about that before all the fireworks. You really think the machines didn't hear that?"

Maka deflates and chews on her bottom lip, eyes downcast. She never thought of that.

He turns his back on her and starts walking. "Tsu, Liz, we're rolling out."

"Copy," they both reply.

She hates how Blake takes charge seamlessly.

In the early bunker days, Sid thought Blake had leadership potential, even when the boy was just a rowdy teenager shouting about his godliness and running butt naked down the halls covered in spray paint - a dare she refused because she had sense. Sid figured he could tame the wildness out of Blake and teach him discipline. In the beginning, most of that discipline translated well in the gym. He pushed his body to the limit and bulked up, claiming he'd surpass the "gods" who let the machines take over. Though no matter how hard Sid tried, he couldn't scrub away Blake's enormous ego. He'd destroy them all, he told her one night. She told him to get in line.

Of course, there were some hiccups in his come-up.

As Maka watches his retreating figure, a bitter part of her wants to mention the Skynet hub he recklessly tried to infiltrate a year ago. He was too eager to prove himself back then (much like her, actually). He ultimately miscalculated the hub's defenses and lost both Kim and Jackie in a tight corridor firefight. They were lovers. Harvar walked out of there blind and Ox is too traumatized to function most days - he hasn't spewed a single fact or statistic at her in a long time. Blake hasn't been the same ever since.

"Hey, wait!" she calls after him. Takes a lot of willpower on her part to keep his biggest mistake from slipping off her tongue like a dagger, but she manages. "I'm still in charge, and I say we keep looking."

She can't return to the bunker empty-handed. This kind of failure will just turn into another reason for Papa to try and hold her back - he already thinks she's too reckless, and this will be like the nail in the coffin.

Maka remembers begging him as a scrawny sixteen-year-old to let her fight on the frontlines. He let Blake fight, so why not her? And in the end, he was adamant about keeping her out of harm's way, ignoring the countless hours she logged in the gym practicing hand-to-hand combat with Sid and Blake, ignoring how horribly dented the targets were in the firing range from all her rubber rounds, and ignoring the time she spent studying any "classified" intel they collected about the machines - actually, the latter pissed him off because he thought she had no right to dig up stuff like that. She argued that the daughter of the resistance had every right to learn about the enemy, and to fight like everyone else.

This, the resistance, is her legacy. He couldn't protect her from that, no matter how badly he wanted to.

He finally caved and let her have her way after a year of fighting the inevitable. The look of defeat on his face that day is forever carved into her memory, because she knows this was never the life he imagined for her, and she knows he sees too much of her mother in her, the woman who left him. He must wonder: will she leave him, too?

"Are you trying to get us all killed?"

That is far from the truth. "I want to save lives."

"Maka," Tsubaki cuts in. "We all do, but BlackStar is right. Inner-city machines will be swarming the area soon. We'll hardly be able to save ourselves, let alone any survivors. You need to let it go. Save your strength for another day."

She hates when Tsubaki plays peacekeeper like this. She's too good at operating in the middle ground between her and Blake. Here she is, taking Blake's side while simultaneously tending to Maka's bruised ego, and it's actually working her over, slowly but surely.

"Liz?" she tries, a small twinge in her voice.

Maka saved Liz's sister, Patty, from a Spider T-7T - a crab-looking thing with machine guns for arms and four crooked legs - back when they first met three years ago. Since that day, Liz acts like she owes Maka a debt. She thinks she's paying it by playing "hired gun" for the resistance when really all she wants to do is keep running; it's what she's good at, she says. Maka has always insisted that Liz doesn't owe her anything. But now she's banking on Liz's fealty to her. She really is selfish.

There's a moment of hesitation over the line. "I'm sorry, Maka. I promised Patty I'd come back."

With no one to take her side, Maka has no choice but to step down and let Blake take point. There's no use in arguing. They don't have the time for it. Soon, inner-city machines will flock to their location, drawn by all the noise, and they don't have the manpower to fight them out in the open like this. They need to disappear, now.

For a fleeting moment, she considers searching on her own…

"Don't even think about it." God, he knows her so well.

Maka ducks her head and brushes past him, heading to the back alley they promised to rendezvous at to exit the city. There, underneath a tarp, sits an old safari-looking land rover filled with fresh siphoned-off gas that's ready to put fire in the tire. Only, they all expected to have more passengers - even cleared out the back to make more room.

Liz and Tsubaki wave them over from the alley, having quickly abandoned their posts the moment Blake asked them to. They didn't even hesitate on his orders. The tarp is off the rover and in the process of being folded to store away for future use.

When Maka reaches them with Blake, her eyes instinctively glide over to the empty seats in the back. She feels his hand reach out to grab her shoulder, but he hesitates. His hand drops to his side.

This is the bed she made. Now she has to lie in it.

* * *

The ride back to the bunker is quiet at first. The only noise is the blustering sand stirred awake by land rover tires, lovingly dubbed as Blake's other deathtrap on four wheels. A sloppy blue star is painted on the hood like a bullseye; he likes to invite the machines to try him. All the windows are rolled down, inviting a breeze and all the whipped up sand inside. His tire treads pick up everything.

Maka pulls her scarf over her nose and mouth and fiddles with her old swimming goggles. She offers Liz an apologetic look - the poor girl forgot her face gear. She's rubbing her eyes and hacking up sand.

"Star, windows up," she growls, eyes closed, but Maka can still imagine the glare.

"Sorry, Brooklyn," Blake sing-songs. "No A/C, remember? Already sweating my balls off as is."

Brooklyn, NY - the only sliver of Liz's past anyone knows about, except for her sister, Patty, who lived it, too. Maka thinks they lost someone. Someone important enough for Liz to build a wall between her and anyone else who isn't Patty. Maka herself can hardly see past it most days. But she understands the thinking behind it.

The more distance you put between yourself and others, the easier it will be to move on once they're gone.

"Maybe slow down?" Tsubaki offers from the passenger's seat. The oversized aviator goggles - clearly Blake's - look funny on her porcelain doll face. Still playing mediator, like always.

Maka watches Blake start to buckle under Tsubaki's soft smile, and wishes she could work the boy over like putty in her hands, too. They'd still be back in the city searching for survivors if she could.

"Fine. But I get first dibs on a shower when we get back."

There's only one working shower in the bunker right now. Sid, army ammunitions expert and now part-time plumber, thinks he can fix the pipes in the next week or two. Until then, everyone shares one measly old stall.

"Hell no," Liz spits. "You're disgusting!"

Maka admits that finding blue hairs in the shower drain - lord, he dyed everything - was not an experience she'd wish on anybody.

"I'm sure he'll clean up after himself this time," Tsubaki says.

Liz scoffs. "Sure, once you two are done in there he'll make you clean up the mess. What a gentleman."

Maka breaks her code of seething silence and laughs, because Tsubaki's face is burning red and gaping like a fish out of water. That explains everything - they are definitely a thing . Nobody's even denying having shower sex, either. She's waiting for Blake to say something ridiculous, like how a god can bang his goddess wherever the fuck he wants, but he doesn't. It's not every day someone like Blake is stunned into silence.

"Guys, gross," Maka says between giggles.

"Whatever. Haters gonna hate. You're just jealous."

Tsubaki shrieks and slaps his arm. "Black Star!"

The rest of the ride is spent with Blake refusing to roll up the windows, Liz spitting up more sand and threatening to shoot him, and Tsubaki embarrassingly sputtering and trying to appease everyone. Maka laughs at the scene until tears well up in her eyes. She almost forgets what awaits her back at the bunker. Almost.

* * *

Maka struts down the bunker hallway with her right arm outstretched, her fingers ghosting over the uneven stone walls. Intermittent lights overhead divide the hallway into light and dark sections to save electricity and avoid a power surge. Tapping into a city transformer is risky enough, but a power surge would alert Skynet of their location in seconds. They've got their nosy circuits wired into the city's electrical grid, ready to detect and act on even the slightest of blips. Everyone is asked to limit their electrical consumption wherever they can. Survival beats out luxuries here.

Maka shivers, wishing she would've grabbed her jacket on her way out of her room. Above ground, the humidity covers her body like a second clammy skin, but below ground it is considerably colder, especially at night. Her thin white t-shirt is by no means bunker-friendly.

"Cold?" Sid says from behind, startling her. Right. She nearly forgot she has an escort. "You can have my jacket, if you'd like."

"I'm fine."

"Suit yourself."

She regards him over her shoulder, drinking in his old army fatigues and the rifle on his back. Nothing about this feels particularly welcoming. To her, Sid is harmless; the skills he learned in the service are used to kill machines, not people. Still, he normally wears a simple tank top and cargo pants in the bunker, waving off the cold like he's known worse. His army fatigues are typically reserved for above ground work. She's never seen him wear them casually around the bunker.

Why does Maka need an escort, anyway? Certainly the daughter of the resistance doesn't need help finding her father's office in the bunker she's called home the past seven years.

"Does Papa not trust me or something?" she says, some bite in her voice. This wouldn't be the first time he's treated her like a child. Not the last, either, she thinks bitterly.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Maka," he begins, and Maka can feel his eyes trained on her back. "But you've got a history of avoiding your father when you're upset. Or when you've done something wrong."

Maka visibly deflates. "Blake told you."

Of course he did - Sid is like a father to him, his mentor. There's no way something as big as Maka went apeshit and took out a scouting drone by herself - Blake's words, not hers - would fly under Sid's radar. The man knows all of Blake's tells. That, or Tsubaki spilled the beans and painted the entire story in a light that screams worried and concerned for Maka's well-being.

"Close. Tsubaki." Well, shit. He got the mushy I almost saw my friend die story. "But Blake is debriefing your father now." And now her father is getting the reckless endangerment version. Perfect.

Maka turns to face him, mouth set in a scowl. "I should be debriefing him. It was my Op."

"At ease, soldier." Her squared shoulders relax on instinct, though she keeps her fingers curled in a tight fist. "You were relieved the moment you put your own needs above the mission and disobeyed a direct order."

Maka wants to argue her side, convince him that destroying the drone was the only way to keep the bunker safe, but she doesn't. She doesn't have the patience to argue with a man as stoic as Sid. Instead, she turns on her heels and keeps walking, settling on a simmering silence to gear herself up to face her father.

In a few short minutes, her boots scuff on the glossy concrete floor outside his office. An old name plate on the door reads Commander Connor, a relic of a past life. No one's offered to take it off. Respect for the dead, she guesses.

Maka reaches to open the door but it bursts open and ricochets against the wall. Blake hurries out, bumping her shoulder and mumbling a half-hearted apology under his breath. He acknowledges Sid and quickly disappears down the hall. She blinks in surprise. It all happened so fast, but she doesn't think the apology was for bumping her.

"Maka, come in." His voice is stern and lacks any warmth or fatherly affection. Normally, she'd crave this, him taking her seriously. Treating her like a soldier for his cause. But there's a part of her that wishes for his obnoxious babbling and overwhelming displays of affection - give her a hug, a kiss on the cheek, anything, just don't bench her.

Maka walks inside, slowly, conscious of how Sid doesn't follow her in. He closes the door behind her, cutting off her only escape and trapping her inside. History of avoiding, huh? Should've known he'd box her in like this. Running away is cowardice - she knows this - but couldn't he have at least given her the choice? She sighs and repeats in her head: courage, gotta have courage. Even if it is just her dopey, hero-set-past-his-expiration-date father.

"Sit."

She complies.

Her father's office is decorated with Commander Connor's past honors and family heirlooms on the walls, but the desk is undisputedly his now. She looks at an old picture framed on the desk and almost doesn't recognize the girl in the photo, all toothy smile and bright green eyes. Hardly her anymore.

He runs his hands through his unruly red-silver hair, pulling it back into a tail, and paces behind his desk. His collared shirt is wrinkled, untucked, and stained with pit sweat. The bags under his eyes tell her he hasn't slept in at least a couple days. He looks down at his shoes as he goes back and forth. He hasn't looked up at her yet.

"My orders were very clear," he says, waving around an authoritative finger in the air. He still doesn't look at her. "Do not engage with any machines. Search and rescue only. "

"I know."

"But you didn't listen."

"Obviously."

Maka hates how badly she wants to get under his skin, to rattle his do-gooder cage - or should she say his philandering cage, because what do-gooder beds women to feel better about himself? She knows he's hurting. It's how he copes, but that doesn't make it right. Everyone's hurting and fighting with their tank flickering on empty - what gives him the right to wallow in his own self-pity with all those women? She's convinced his dumb ass thinks too much with the snake between his legs.

Men, she thinks, hardly resisting the dramatic eye roll in her father's face.

He doesn't budge on her taunt. "People could've gotten hurt, Maka, or worse, killed."

"But nobody did," she bites back. "No casualties. No injuries. Just a dead hunk of metal."

He stops pacing. His eyes finally land on her, and they're sharp at first, but then they settle into something far worse: disappointment. "Did you ever stop and think about the people you could've saved?"

Maka doesn't know what to say. She bites her lip and stares holes into the floor.

"Your mission was to search for any survivors. Instead, you recklessly took down a scouting drone that you could've let go - " She tries to sneak in a word about protecting the bunker's location but he shushes her. " - and you attracted inner-city machines to your location." He stops, contemplating his next words, but continues, face looking grim. "If there were any survivors, odds are the machines found them."

Maka feels sick to her stomach. "I-I could have saved them." She could have, if only Blake didn't take control, and if only Tsubaki and Liz chose to follow her, believe in her. Everything would've been different.

"I know you believe that." He smiles at her, but the gesture isn't comforting. If anything, it proves that he can't look at her and see a soldier for his resistance - he just sees her, his daughter, like a doll made of glass so eager to break.

"It's true." She wipes her eyes before any tears can fall. She's already fragile enough as it is in his eyes. To him, she'll always be the little dreamy-eyed girl in the photo.

He shakes his head, unconvinced. "You need time to process all this. To stew in your own mess, if you will." He looks so tired, completely resigned to the conversation at hand, but Maka's back is rigid and her fingers are digging into the wooden armchairs, knowing exactly what he means before he can speak it.

"Two weeks." He holds up two fingers for emphasis. "You're under bunker -arrest for two weeks. No missions. No going topside. Nothing."

She lurches forward in her chair. "But Papa, I - "

"Two weeks! Speak out of turn again, and I'll make it a month." She gawks at the thought of being stuck underground for thirty days. She'd go stir-crazy. Hell, she doesn't think she can last a full forty-eight hours in the bunker without losing her mind. Fresh air keeps her sane.

"We'll talk more then. You need time to reflect on your actions."

Maka wants to throw up, preferably on the younger-her and her cheeky smile.

"Do I make myself clear?"

She squirms in her seat. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Now, come give Papa a hug."

The way he switches between the leader of the resistance to her flirtatious oaf of a father is very jarring. He makes comical grabby-hands at her, eyes watering with… what? Joy? Relief? Idiocy? All solid answers in her book. Nevertheless, Maka humors him, letting him wrap his arms around her in a tight bear hug, but keeps her arms at her sides.

"Papa was so worried about his baby girl," he coos into her shoulder.

"Stop talking in the third person," she deadpans, rolling her eyes at him. Then, with a quick whiff, she pushes him away. "Gah, Papa! You reek. Go take a shower."

"But… Blake and Tsubaki are in there," he whines.

So that's where that bastard ran off to so fast, she thinks sourly.

"Whatever. Just… clean yourself up." She steps away and reaches for the door. "Wouldn't want the leader of the resistance to suffocate his own people with his stench."

He smiles, not to his eyes, but it's not sad, either. "Love you, too."

Maka hesitates with her hand on the doorknob. She almost considers returning the sentiment. Truth is, he's hard to love - sometimes Maka hates that she can't just cut him out of her heart for all he's put her through - but he's not lost to her. Not yet. She gnaws on her bottom lip. Her hand twists the knob, inviting the door to swing open and scrape against a crack in the floor.

"Where's Sid?" she asks, searching the hall for her stoic army man. He trapped her and deserted her. Some escort.

"Sid is… around." He's hiding something from her. "You're dismissed, Maka. I hope I'll see you at dinner tonight."

As if to answer, Maka lets go of the door and watches until it slowly clicks shut. Her father's face tries not to crack under her quiet stare, offering her a small smile as a peace offering between them. His eyes betray him. A whirlwind of guilt and exhaustion swirls in his irises with a pinch of fatherly love. He thinks he's hollow on the inside, but the truth is he feels too much.

"Sure," tumbles from her lips in a whisper, but she doubts he catches it.

Unlike her father, Maka feels too little, too much all at once. Her choice to destroy the drone - consequently abandoning any survivors to the machines - was terribly selfish. Is selfishness human, she wonders; does the bile crawling up her throat for the people she could've saved make her human?

At least she isn't a machine.

Skynet knows no humanity. No compassion, no love, no loyalty. Only cold calculations and bloodthirst for human lives - the cancer it's decided to purge as the only threat to its survival. How do you fight something that can't feel, can't reason, only kill?

Two weeks. She has two weeks to move past this guilt and start anew.

Maka hurries back to her room, shaking off the chill. Only time will tell.

* * *

Her nightmares are painfully real tonight.

She sees herself, too young, too naive, desperate to keep up as her father pulls her blindly ahead. His words are silent - just tiny glances back at her, mouth moving, but no sound - and all she can hear is her racing heartbeat.

Ba bump, ba bump, ba bump.

All around her everything feels calm, beautiful even. Just down the roadside hill, in a large dip of the land, she sees a lake that reflects the mountainside in the distance crowded by trees as far as the eye can see. The view is breathtaking - like one of the pictures on the postcards her Mama used to send her while she was away. But her father isn't stopping to sightsee, and he keeps tugging her forward roughly by the arm. He is the one thing in this picture that doesn't belong.

Ba bump, ba bump, ba bump.

"Papa, where are we going?" she whimpers. Again, only empty words she can't hear answer her.

Ba bump, ba bump, ba bump.

"Papa, you're scaring me. What's wrong?" More empty words.

Ba bump, ba bump, ba bump.

At the end of the road, a large rock formation surrounded by military-grade vehicle greets them. No military personnel - the place is eerily silent, abandoned. No one's been here in years. Her father rushes to the large metal doors carved into the rock, big enough to fit small aircraft, and frantically dials in a code.

How does he know the code?

Ba bump, ba bump, ba bump.

The door stirs to life and slowly recedes up into the rock. He tries to take her hand again, but she dodges him and backs away from the door.

Ba bump, ba bump, ba bump.

"What's happening!" she screams, desperate for answers.

He screams silently back at her. There are tears staining her cheeks, snot running over her lips, as a tight sob clogs her throat. She lets him pull her inside. Her body is too numb, too limp to protest. He lets go to dial the number again from the inside and the doors close. She lifts up her arm, expecting him to take it and drag her around again like baggage, but his fingers interlock with hers instead, gently encouraging her to walk with him. She does.

Ba bump, ba bump, ba bump.

The scene skips ahead in time, past the slow discovery of what felt like a never-ending cycle of stairs, another metal door sealing them in, boxy computers, and the president's seal painted on the floor, and straight to her staring up at a giant monitor in a daze. On the screen, she watches as several nuclear warheads blossom out of the earth and shoot up into the sky. They leave a long white trail that slowly starts to dip into an arch.

Ba bump, ba bump, ba bump.

"Papa, what is this?"

His words aren't empty this time. "The end of the world."

Ba bump, ba bump, ba bump.

She chokes up. "Y-You knew?" Why else would he know to come here?

His silhouette starts to blur as he looks away.

Ba bump, ba bump, ba bump.

When the warheads touch down, shaking the very ground beneath her feet, the apparition of what was once her screams. Except these screams cannot be contained.

Ba bump, ba bump, ba bump.

Maka jolts awake, fists turning white as they crumple her sheets in a tight grip. She's dripping with sweat.

"Not real," she breathes heavily. "Not really happening."

A shadow materializes at her door, careful not to encroach too much on her space. She does keep a gun under her pillow, much to her father's chagrin. She's squeezing the grip right now.

"You good?"

Not a machine.

Maka lets go of the gun, reaches for her bedside lamp, and flicks the light on. She quickly rubs the sleep out of her eyes. Standing in her doorway, clad in a white undershirt and comical star boxers, is good ol' Blake. His blue hair looks wilder than usual. It's standing up in all different directions - hah, kinda like a star. His eyes show annoyed indifference, but she knows deep down he's more concerned than he's letting on.

Does he remember how she had to pin him to the bed to stop his night terrors after the hub incident? He almost broke her arm one night. Kept screaming their names, saying he was sorry. He hasn't had an episode like that in a while, though.

"I'm fine. Just a nightmare."

"You sure?" He remembers, judging from the look he gives her now. He's not convinced.

"Judgment Day," she answers, as if it'll tell him everything he needs to know. It does.

He yawns. "I gotcha. Just… don't scream like that." He stops and swallows a lump in his throat. It dawns on her that she might have sounded like Kim and Jackie before they - "Even gods need their beauty sleep."

She can tell there's more Blake wants to say - something less ridiculous at the very least - but he slips out of her room before he can barf out any of his feelings. Men. So emotionally constipated. She wonders if he spills any of his guts to Tsubaki when no one's looking.

Then again, is she really all that different from him? She tries to keep her feelings under lock and key, too.

She turns off the light and tucks her gun back under her pillow. When Maka closes her eyes, she prays to the deadbeat gods that she doesn't slip into another memory. Luckily, she doesn't. Nothing but dark static behind her eyelids.

Eventually, she falls asleep to empty sound. To the empty voices she knows she left behind, silently crying out for help.

So really, she gets no sleep at all.


	2. Chapter 2

By day three of her sentence, Maka is beginning to lose it.

"He's treating me like a child!" she huffs, taking another swing at the punching bag.

Each hard thump off the bag echoes in the little thrown together gym. Dusty mats, a couple of bags to make bloody knuckles with, a workout bench and weights, a rusting basketball hoop, and some wooden pallets stacked on top of each other to make a ring - her own personal sanctuary that smells like sweat and pent-up frustration. Just the way she likes it.

"Benching me, not telling me things, pretending like I can't take care of myself!" She lands a double uppercut. "I'm fucking twenty-three! I do what I want!"

Standing off the mat to her right, Liz plays with her nails, eyes unfocused, cool as a cucumber. "That's right. You tell'em, Maka."

"Liz, I'm serious."

"So am I." She holds her hand up for inspection. "I don't care if it's the end of the world, I'm not going out there with raggedy-ass nails."

Holding the punching bag from behind, Patty laughs. "Big Sis's got her priorities straight."

"Says the girl who rolled her ankle," Liz teases, offering her sister an exaggerated look of disgust. What she fails to bring up, Maka notices, is how scared she was when she first saw Patty hobbling down the street with a small HK-tank on her six on that supply run two weeks ago. "When's the last time you trimmed your toenails? Maybe they got caught on something."

"Ha ha ha, you're funny - oof! Makaaaa, a little warning next time would be great."

Maka lowers her fists. "Sorry."

It's not like Maka doesn't enjoy spending time with Liz and Patty - their back and forth banter is honestly entertaining most days - but she feels out of place here. They're happy for the downtime, she isn't. They can crack jokes and pretend like the world isn't a huge dumpster fire; she feels herself burning along with it. They could care less about her father's plans until it concerns them, while her head is spinning just thinking about what he's not telling her. It isn't their fault if any survivors were shredded by inner-city machines, that's all on her. All that blood is on her hands. She looks down at her palms, half-expecting them to be soaked in red, but they're empty.

They weren't empty in her dreams last night.

"Uh, earth to Maka? Anybody in there?" She feels someone's knuckles gently knock on her forehead. "Hellooooo?"

Maka snaps out of it. "Here." She swats Patty's hands away. "Really, Patty?"

"You looked super angsty," she says, shrugging.

Liz surprises her from behind. "Maka, I think I speak for everyone when I say this…" She pauses for dramatic effect, gripping Maka's shoulders and turning her around to come face to face. Maka's eyes drift down to her toes.

"You. Need. To. Chill. Quit pretending like the apocalypse revolves around you 'cause, news flash, it doesn't. You're not some messiah - no one is. We're all just fish in this shitty pond called life. The sooner you get that, the better."

Patty nods along like a bobblehead to every word Liz says. "Yup, yup, yup!"

"You don't get it," is all she can think of to say back. "Too many people have died for this." For her. She knows she's not mankind's last hope, but she was their last hope - the people she left behind to the machines. They haunt her, cry out to her, die because of her. She's watched people die before - torn to pieces by machine gunfire, bleeding too much, the light leaving their eyes - but knowing that she's the reason why, because she was just too goddamn selfish in the heat of the moment, that hurts more.

Maka doesn't know if she can live with that kind of guilt.

Liz looks about ready to pull her into a hug. "Maka, you can't take all the blame. That's not - "

"Stop. Don't tell me it isn't fair."

"Maka…"

"I really don't need your pity." She marches off the mat, grabs a towel, and wipes the sweat off her face.

"Who says this is pity?"

"You're looking at me like some kicked puppy," she snaps.

Patty finally chimes in. "When's the last time you slept good, Maka?"

Her shoulders slump. She hasn't had a lick of good sleep since she woke up from her J-Day nightmare. These past couple nights have drowned her in blood - they've been sleepless, horrifying. She can only imagine what this kind of exhaustion looks like on her.

"Sleeeeeeeep," Patty coos. She steps between her and Liz and pushes her toward the locker room showers - err, shower. "Shower, then sleep. Lots and lots of sleep!"

"Patty, I -"

"Shhh, sleep is good!" She purses her lips. "But shower first, 'cause you smell baaaaad."

Maka's guilt wanes a little and she smiles. "Okay, okay. I'm going. You can stop pushing me!"

"Won't stop, can't stop~"

Patty kicks open the door, and steam gusts out and pastes over their skin. Maka blinks. Once. Twice. The scene slowly starts to materialize - Blake, Tsubaki, very naked, all sudsed up and covered barely by a cloud of steam, hands pawing at each other, sucking face - and Maka's mouth runs dry. Hands cup over her eyes from behind.

"Avert your virgin eyes!" Patty squeals.

"Patty," Maka laughs, her gut clenching. "Nooooooo."

"What in the fuck? Get out ya freeloaders!" Blake shouts, and Tsubaki shrieks in surprise. Maka imagines her cowering behind him, trying to hold onto any modesty she's got left. Blake doesn't care much for that. She saw too much of him in those few seconds, his modesty swaying back and forth in the shower steam. Or, if she's being frank, standing at attention.

Men. Are. So. Gross.

She and Patty stumble out through the doorway, laughing so hard they can hardly breathe. When Liz raises a brow at them they just laugh some more. Maka crouches down to her knees and hugs her aching stomach - she hasn't laughed like this in a long time.

"Do I even wanna know?"

Patty grins and makes a crude gesture with her hands. The one where you make a circle and stick your pointer finger through repeatedly.

Liz squints at her. "What?"

As if on cue, Blake pushes through the door, and Maka thanks the lord he had the decency to wrap a towel around his waist.

"Oh," Liz mutters under her breath.

"You asswipes ever heard of knocking?" Blake growls. She can't help but notice how red his face is - with anger, embarrassment, or from the hot shower, who knows. Another laugh bubbles up her throat and his glare shifts to her.

"What's so funny?"

She tries not to snort in his face. "Err, nothing."

"Like I said," he grumbles. " Jealous ."

Maka is about to make some snide remark about not wanting whatever that was she just witnessed - if that's really what hot, steamy sex looks like, she'll pass - when an alarm starts to go off, and red lights start flashing.

Everyone covers their ears. The sound pierces her eardrums like a blade, and it keeps stabbing and stabbing; she's honestly surprised there's no blood leaking through her fingers. Their faces show up in flashes of red, eyes wide and searching for answers. For as long as Maka can remember an alarm like this has never gone off in the bunker. She thought the alarm system was fried; good riddance, too, because the noise could draw machines, would draw machines.

Oh no.

Tsubaki walks out of the locker room, fully clothed, hands over her ears. "What's happening?"

Maka doesn't think, just acts. She's out of the gym and down the hall in seconds, her instincts steering her toward her father's office - surely he must know something, the secretive bastard. She throws open his door and finds no one. His office is empty. She stands in the doorway far longer than she should, dumbfounded. The little girl in the photo smiles mockingly at her. Where the hell is he?

"Control room!" Blake yells to her from down the hall, still clad in only a towel. Then he disappears around a corner in a quick burst of speed. Maka breaks out of her stupor and follows him.

They're about to kick down the control room door when the alarm stops wailing. Lights stop flashing. It's quiet again, aside from the insistent ringing in her ears. She'll be hearing the shrill echo of that alarm for hours. Blake hikes up his towel a bit, looking more winded than he'd probably like to, and steadily grips the door handle. He looks back at her and she nods her approval - they need to know why the alarm went off, no question. The door swings open.

Inside, Sid, her father, and a few others - Harvar and Ox, surprisingly, to name a couple - huddle around a prehistoric military radio docked on top of an even older computer system, looking frazzled.

"Dicking around with all the old wiring on this radio," Sid starts, looking shell-shocked, "trying to get a signal and all, and I guess the alarms aren't as dead as we thought. Damn."

Her father finds his voice. "Someone, please make sure we don't have any company outside."

Ox nods and rushes out of the room. Must be one of his good days.

"Thought the radio was a lost cause, Spirit," Blake says, voice clipped. She's not exactly in a great mood either after running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

"Said the same about the alarm system," her father, Spirit, answers. He stands up from a crouching position and looks to almost do a double-take when he sees Blake. "Couldn't bother with some pants, Blake? Or a shirt?"

"Kinda busy panicking over some bullshit alarm," Blake deadpans.

"Papa, what is all this?" She scans the room, eyes drawn to all the tools scattered about, like they've been working on something for a while. Is this what he's been hiding? He's been tight-lipped ever since their meeting, waving off her questions as if a condition of her punishment is to be perpetually out of the loop.

"We're operating under a hunch."

"What kind of hunch?" He owes her an explanation, damn it.

Spirit shakes his head. "Maka, I don't think - "

"Hello?"

Everybody in the room nearly gets whiplash turning their heads so fast to stare dumbly at the radio. Sid plays with the dials, pretending like he knows how to boost the signal. Against all odds, it works - the radio spurs to life and starts talking again.

"Is anybody there? Please, we need help."

Sid fiddles with the cobweb-covered mic. "We read you. You hear me? The resistance reads you."

"We're pinned down. Machines everywhere. Please, is anybody there?"

The mic isn't working.

"We're trapped in the radio station off of 7th and Bexley."

Maka's heart sinks down to her gut.

"Please, if anybody's out there… we won't last much longer."

The signal drops and static rings in their ears.

Maka crumples down to her knees. "7th and Bexley," she mumbles. She looks up at Blake, eyes glossy - his own look down at her pitifully. "We were there. " They were right there, one block away from the scouting drone, not even. A stone throw's away the whole time.

And she led the machines straight to them.

"Maka, it's not your fault," someone says, and she doesn't care enough to figure out who it was as their voice fades out of focus. Underneath the cacophony of what sounds like cymbals after their clashed together in her ears, she hears their hollow screams calling her name. Begging her to see them, just look, we're right here, but she was too blind, too selfish.

Maka grabs on to what composure she has left and holds on tight, tipping her chin up to look her father dead in the eyes, hoping he doesn't find any tears in hers.

"What hunch?" she grunts, eyes not asking but telling, demanding.

Spirit scratches at the stubble on his throat. "The other day Sid picked up on some kind of broadcast on the radio in his truck. It was weak, couldn't make out a single word, really. Too much static. But it didn't sound like any of that pre-recorded bullshit that sometimes slips through the cracks of old radio waves, either. It sounded raw."

"Go on," Maka says between gritted teeth. She acts like she's pressing a gun to his temple, doing all she can to keep him talking. No more secrets.

"Sid and I did our homework. Remember those maps we found in the library?"

Maka nods.

"Yeah, well, from those we found out about the radio station. You can imagine the 'what ifs' we came up with from that intel. Anyway, Sid tried scoping the place out three days ago."

So that's where Sid disappeared to during their meeting.

"We didn't know until he got there that that's where you and Blake came from. Couldn't get close enough with all the machines around so," he gestures to all the tools and the decrepit radio, "here we are."

"Why did you keep all this from me?"

"Because…" His eyes are soft and gooey when they look at her. "You were already having a tough time coming to terms with the people you might've lost. I didn't want to put this on you, too."

She shakes her head, slowly, repeatedly. "That's not fair and you know it."

"Maka, baby, I'm sorry." He reaches out to comfort her, but she slaps his hand away. He recoils like she burned him. "I just didn't want you to get hurt."

"Too late."

Maka jumps to her feet in a surge of energy and emotion too strong for her to keep under lock and key. She pushes past Blake's naked chest, surprised when he doesn't try to stop her or even sneak a word in. He's eerily quiet. Strange, for someone who normally can't keep his mouth shut.

She marches down the hall, bumping shoulders with a group of eavesdroppers - Liz, Patty, Tsubaki, Ox, a couple others - and doesn't give them any time to say something. Burning the rubber on her boots, Maka whirls around the corner like a wannabe track star. Truth is, before everything went to shit, she had plans to try out for the team. Funny how life turns plans upside down.

"C-Clear!" Ox pipes up, voice shaky like it's always been since Kim and Jackie bit the dust. No machines on the horizon. They're safe… for now.

Maka tries to wrap her head around the word, clear , thinking of Blake's eyes when she shoved him out of her way. Unlike her father's, they were mostly empty of any emotion he's not ready to show, but overflowing with a regret he couldn't hide from her. He's got eyes like the ones he came back with a year ago. Eyes that know blood's spilling and your two hands aren't enough to catch it all.

On the surface, his eyes were clear - but she wonders if his eyes mirrored hers, if they know the guilt that churns her stomach. She thinks he does. He's far too intimate with this kind of guilt not to.

Neither of them are getting sleep tonight.

* * *

In Maka's bed, they'll find a body pillow under the sheets pretending to be her. She wants to be long gone by the time they do.

She's outside working on hotwiring her father's old jeep - something she'll vehemently deny is an act of revenge (even if it probably is) - and let's loose a string of curses because, damn it all, she should've taken Blake up on his offer to play mechanic with his rover a couple of months ago. Surely he would've shown her the basics of hotwiring a fucking car.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," she repeats, miming the beat of an old song she can't remember the name of, but she's pretty sure it's techno. Maka used to love the way the heavy bass pumped through her body and asked her to move, even if she was sloppy and horribly offbeat. It felt liberating - and this, defiling her father's car, kind of feels like that, too.

For one thing, she is sloppy, trying to tap two wires together without knowing if they're even the right ones.

"So fuckin' predictable, I swear."

Maka sits up too fast to reach for her gun and inevitably bumps her forehead on the base of the steering wheel. "Gah! Fuck. "

"You'd be dead if I was running on circuits," Blake says, hardly joking with her.

She leans up into a sitting position, side-eying the steering wheel. "Yeah, well, you're not. Machines don't do small talk. Or dye their hair bright blue." She adds the last bit to get a rise out of him, to make him drop his guard.

"Lucky for you." It doesn't work, obviously.

"So, what? You hear to stop me or something?" Her hand gravitates toward her pistol on her gun belt. She knows she doesn't have the guts to shoot him - wouldn't ever dream of shooting the man she looks up to like a big brother - but she's not afraid to knock him out, if need be. Who says guns can't be a weapon without a bullet in the chamber?

He rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck. "I guess I am."

She's expecting him to help her out of the car but nothing happens.

"Uh, is this supposed to be the part where you drag me back inside?"

"I don't know, is it?" He sounds so nonchalant and it's driving her up a wall. Emotions are high, her fuse is very short.

"You tell me."

His feet start stomping back and forth - he swapped his high tops for military-grade boots - and he only barely keeps an eye on her as he talks. He's got his hands behind his head, like what old-world police officers used to ask people to do, except he looks way too relaxed as he does it.

"Drag you back inside, dump you in your room, tell your Pops, go back to my room, toss and turn, get up, visit Tsu's room, have her kiss my cheek and whisper sweet nothings into my ear," he drawls, almost like he's drunk but she knows he's not. His father was an angry drunk, he wouldn't stoop so low. "Still get no sleep. Hear their screams." His voice tremors and he tries to swallow it away. "I just don't know anymore."

Her hand slips off her holster. "I've got a better idea."

"Oh really?" He stops in his tracks, twisting around on his boot heel to face her. "Do tell."

Maka stands up, not quite matching his height but close enough. "Help me save them."

"Why?"

She keeps her tone flat. "Because I hear them, too. And I want to make them stop."

The time that passes between them feels like an eternity, until, "Sure."

Maka hardly has time to process things before there's a key being tossed at her. She scrambles to catch it, a little embarrassingly for someone with good hand-eye coordination, but now it's in her hands. Her eyes gawk at the little gem in her open palms like it has all the answers.

Guess she doesn't have to learn how to hotwire a car, after all.

"We're taking my rover," he says, collecting the desert shrubs she'd pulled off the jeep earlier and resetting them. The machines can't seem to rationalize beyond seeing people and not seeing people to think twice about a few parked cars in the desert, but the resistance doesn't take any chances.

She nods and helps him finish covering the jeep. When they're done, they hike a couple hundred yards to his rover - they try not to keep the vehicles in clusters - and pull away more shrubs. She's about to open the driver's side door when he blocks her.

"Yeah, that whole key tossing thing was just for show. I drive."

She rolls her eyes and drops the key into his waiting hand. "Knew it was too good to be true."

"As if I'd ever let you wreck my ride."

"That was one time," she growls.

Blake's smirk looks spent - he hasn't gotten much sleep lately, either. "Ah, that little punk-ass Prius. May she rest in pieces."

Maka punches his shoulder before she circles the car and hops in the passenger's seat. He's quick to follow her lead and puts the key in the ignition. The rover roars to life, but they just sit there for a couple minutes.

"We really doing this?" Shit, he's having second thoughts.

She lets the dagger slip off her tongue. "If you could go back and save Kim and Jackie, would you?"

The way his boot falls like a bag of bricks on the gas pedal gives her the answer she needs.

* * *

It's nearly daybreak when they ditch the rover in an alley a few blocks down from their destination. They rolled up into the city in a crawl, lights off and nearly stalling at a whopping five miles per hour. No need to ring the dinner bell for the machines by driving like speed racer with the headlights blaring. The distorted babble of wandering machines - HK tanks, drones, spiders… terminators - crackle in her ears like a campfire spitting embers; she imagines someone standing over the flames with a gas can, waiting.

"This is a horrible idea, I hope you know that." She really does, mostly because he hasn't shut up about it since they left.

"Feel free to leave at any time," she says, eyes glaring holes through his back as they walk block after block. His nervous chatter is starting to get on her nerves. "You don't have to be here. Go back if you're so scared."

He scoffs. "Hah, someone as big as me doesn't get scared."

"You're only 5'8," she deadpans.

"Still bigger than you, short stack." If there's a sliver of insecurity in his voice, she doesn't call him out on it, no matter how tempting. There's more important things to think about.

"We need to stay focused."

His words are razor sharp. "Never lost focus." He adjusts the rifle in his hands and pops off the magazine to count ammo, which it's full. He's checked a couple times already. "C'mon. We don't got all day."

Maka follows Blake with her chin tucked down, hands clutching her own rifle - lucky he kept a spare in his trunk - and watches his boot heels take careful steps. He crouches down and creeps forward, peeking through a crack in a coffee shop window. She can still smell the ground coffee beans. Smells like weekday mornings when her Mama would brew a fresh pot for her Papa before she left for work. She did that the day she left, too.

"Tin man, three o'clock."

"What?"

Blake tugs her forward by her jacket sleeve and points through the hole in the glass. Standing on the sidewalk around the corner with its back turned to them, is a tall, bulky metal man. A humanoid terminator. Its gait is automated, hardly human-like, so there's no way it's an infiltrator type. Doesn't even have fake skin to cover its steel skeleton. When it swivels in the other direction she can see it carrying a minigun - those things can shoot off 2,000 rounds per minute, maybe more. They'd be nothing but a pile of chunky meat soup on the street if they got hit.

"Damn it." Even if they manage to put a bullet between its glowing red eyes, it'll fire the minigun on a ghost trigger like the scouting drone and draw more machines to them.

"All these buildings are packed pretty close," he whispers, nodding his head in the direction of where they just came from. "Saw a fire escape down that alley we just passed. We can climb up the back and roof hop. There's an antenna on top of the radio station, right? Maybe there's a door, too."

Maka claps his shoulder as she turns to find the alley. "Take the high ground, got it."

"Shit, it's coming this way. Book it!"

They run like a pair of gazelles, all legs and lungs gasping for air. Their guns jostle against their straps as they turn on a dime and dive out of sight into the alley. Maka doesn't know if they're lucky or not when they land on a pile of trash bags; she can practically taste the juices of garbage way past its expiration, expiration date. It takes all of her willpower and then some not to barf up last night's tuna salad surprise. She hears a clunky shifting noise back by the coffee shop, but no gunfire. It didn't see them.

"Smells like ass," Blake groans, gagging into the crook of his arm.

"Shhh!"

Drones might not be very sound sensitive, but terminators are.

Their eyes meet when they hear a warped voice - machine babble, doesn't make any human sense - and they roll off the bags to their feet in one fluid motion. They've got prey legs again as they dart down the alley towards the fire escape. Maka is beyond thankful that the ladder is already pulled down, just a hair's length from scuffing the cement.

"Lady's first," Blake says, boosting her up the ladder. A part of her wants to tell him chivalry is dead, but it's probably a waste of breath so she doesn't. She hurries up the ladder and crawls onto the platform. He climbs up after her.

When they finally reach the roof, Maka is out of breath and trying to tell her aching lungs to catch up. Blake keels over and blows chunks - tuna salad surprise, we meet again, she thinks. He wipes his chin and she wipes the sweat off her brow. Sun's up, and it's a real scorcher today. If she squints at the desert behind them she can see how the heat blurs the air and her vision.

Blake can't stop spitting. "We gotta," spit, "keep," spit, "moving." He spits again. "Fuck, no more tuna. Shit tastes awful coming back up."

She rolls her eyes. "Like you said, we need to keep moving."

The first jump isn't so bad, even if her knees do crack angrily in protest. On the second jump she tries to tuck and roll; this time, her shoulder groans and insists that she stop trying to play superhuman. By now the adrenaline is starting to drown out all the aches and pains. The third jump is like a bunny hop that they both hurdle easily. She can see the antenna now, only one more leap of faith left. Except there is no fourth jump because Maka stops on the edge and stares blankly at the gaping hole between the buildings. Too far, they won't make it.

Blake whistles. "Wellllp, that fuckin' figures." He paces behind her. "Maybe, with a running start…"

"No, we won't make it," she says. "We'll find another way."

"Sure, we've got this." He's trying to channel all his pumped-up bravado. "Still, this was a horrible, horrible idea. If we live, I'm never gonna let you forget this."

She's shaking. "Oh, get over yourself."

"Bite me."

"I'm not Tsubaki."

He doesn't blush, just laughs like an idiot. "God, what I'd give for sex right now."

She whirls on him. "Are you kidding me?"

"Heh, nope. It's a kickass stress reliever. Should try it sometime."

Maka is going to slap him - her hand is in the air and ready - but the sound of whirring propellers stops her dead in her tracks. She can hear the sand whip up like a twister down below, creating a crop circle of clean pavement in the street. The wind starts to pick up. The chop chop chop blares in her ears. This is no drone.

"Shit, Maka, you gotta jump. Now."

A giant black shadow of death in the shape of a helicopter peeks over the rooftop, it's turrets already burning holes through their chests. In the three seconds she has to process things, she takes note of its sleek design and its barrel-shaped propeller ducts that keep it afloat; it's highly maneuverable, armed to the teeth with missiles and plasma cannons. Maybe if they shoot through the ducts' mouths they can crash it. All this, she compartmentalizes in seconds. Gotta think quick on your feet if you want to survive in this world.

It speaks bass-thrumming gibberish at them.

"Jump, I'll cover for you!"

She blinks owlishly at him. "But it's too far, I - "

"Jesus, fuck, " he yells, firing off a few rounds in a we're miles up shit creek kind of way. The machine - an HK-aerial unit - gurgles angrily at him and tilts on an axis to avoid his fire. It starts to adjust its turrets. "Just GO!"

Before her brain has time to process again, Maka is backpedaling and preparing herself for a running start. Blake howls in the background as he unloads clip after clip. She breaks into a sprint, her legs feeling like they're carrying a pair of dumbells for feet, and nearly stumbles at the sound of turret fire whistling behind her. She's about to look back and check on Blake…

"Don't look back, keep running! JUMP!"

She jumps like an Olympic hurdler, but it's not enough. Her legs start flailing in the air when the antenna soars up out of her line of sight as she goes down, down, down. She falls under the rooftop's rim, off by seven feet, easy. She's in free fall and landing on the ground like a meat pancake is not on her list of ways to die. Fortunately, her momentum still pushes her forward. Shifting her rifle to one arm, Maka fires a couple of rounds at the closest window and, with a little midair theatrics, barrels through the opening headfirst.

Something red hot knicks the back of her thigh.

She doesn't have time to cry out before her body catapults onto a conference table, sliding clumsily into empty canned goods and water bottles. She drops off the other side onto the floor with a heavy thump. She's joined by more cans, bottles, and a few empty sleeping bags.

Time passes.

Maka can't tell how long she's been on the ground. Seconds, minutes, hours, days. Her senses are fried. There's a ringing in her ears that blurs everything out. She slowly rises, her hand reaching up to brush her hairline wet with blood. The pricks of pain elicit a small wince. Urgency hits her when gunfire finally cuts through the ringing, and she shifts to get up - bad move.

"Ahhh… shit," she hisses. A pool of red starts to grow under her left thigh. She can't tell if the bullet grazed her, went clean through, or is taking up residence in her leg. Just her luck.

"Blake?" The best answer she gets is more gunfire and a yahoo! coming from outside.

Maka attempts to stand, using the table as a support, and finds out quickly that walking is going to hurt like a bitch when she puts a little weight down on her bad leg. Her will is made of steel - her father told her so - but it's starting to melt from the pain and the gravity of the situation at hand. Still, she pretends to bite the maybe-bullet in her leg and carries on. The daughter of the resistance can't cry and roll over when things get tough.

She hobbles out of the room, hoping her friends who left all the trash and the sleeping bags behind are still around. They have to be the people she abandoned, they just have to be, and they better be alive, too.

Aside from the incessant gunfire outside - something that better not stop 'cause Blake can't die in the silence - it's eerily quiet in the halls. No shuffling of panicked feet, voices whispering or yelling. Maka wants to believe they're hiding somewhere under a pact of silence so as to not draw attention to themselves. That's gotta be it.

Maka stops to prop her foot up on a stray hallway chair, tearing fabric off the hem of her shirt to tie around her thigh to stall the bleeding. There's a trickle trail of blood droplets behind her. After tying the cloth into a tight knot, she keeps going. She clears room after room and a couple of broom closets. Nobody, so far. Her ears focus on the fireworks outside. When it stops, she won't know what to think.

"Don't die you cocky bastard," she mumbles.

A faint, broken up voice suddenly calls from one of the doors down the hall. Maka leans on her good leg and points the rifle - she wants to find people, but she's also not stupid. Caution wins over blind heroism.

"Hello?" someone calls again, a little hesitant.

Maka lowers the gun and hurries down the hall. It's them, it has to be!

"Is anybody there? Please, we need help."

"I'm coming, hold on!" she cries out to them. Her hand finds the doorknob and throws the door open. She searches frantically for someone, anyone, but finds no one as her surroundings come into focus. Maka's breath catches in her throat. She's in a recording studio with all kinds of gadgets, blinking lights, and an empty sound booth, and she's alone.

"We're pinned down. Machines everywhere. Please, is anybody there?"

She tries to swallow the lump in her throat.

The radio keeps playing it's sad, sad song. "We're trapped in the radio station off of 7th and Bexley."

Maka is ready to scream, nails digging hard into her palms.

"Please, if anybody's out there… we won't last much longer."

When the broadcast drops, Maka yells until she's hoarse and empties a few rounds into the soundboard. Her short temper is her achilles heel, Papa used to tell her. She doesn't think she gives a flying fuck because Blake is going to die or is already dead and so are the people that used to be here and it's all her fault. The soundboard coughs up sparks. At the very least, no one else can be lured here to die.

"Hello?"

Maka whips around just in time for metal hands to rip the gun out of her grasp, breaking her rifle strap at the seams. Her best weapon hits the wall. She tries to grab the pistol in her holster but she's knocked back onto the soundboard in a powerful upward thrust. When her back hits charred up metal, her lungs feel like they're ready to cave in.

The terminator's eyes are piercing red as its hands reach for her throat. She curls her knees to her chest and kicks out with all her might, hitting its chest plate and pushing it back. Her butt hits the floor and she's crawling, limbs everywhere, to her rifle like it's her only hope. One hand reaches for it while the other searches frantically for the pistol on her hip. The tips of her fingers brush the rifle strap and start to grasp the grip in her holster - and that's when the red hot pain in her thigh starts to explode.

She screams. Its finger is twisting like a screw on a power drill in the hole in her leg and it hurts. It starts climbing her legs, grabbing fist fulls of her, and appears to want to find her throat again. She gets one blind shot off before its elbow hits the pistol out of her hand, knocking it out of play. The rifle is her only chance now. Her legs try to kick the machine away but its hold on her is too strong. Her heart is racing the Kentucky Derby right now.

Ba bump, ba bump, ba bump.

Maka reaches for the rifle again, vision blurring from the tears in her eyes. The tin man bastard starts reeling her in and now the gun is too far away. Cold, metal fingertips frisk the back of her neck, ready to squeeze the life out of her. Ready to kill without remorse.

How do you fight something that can't feel, can't reason, only kill?

She can't die like this, not like this. This can't be the end.

Maka twists around in its grip, grabs its head, and shoves her thumbs into its eye sockets. It roars and answers her back by digging its sharp fingers into her side like a blade - she can feel it sink between her ribs. It pulls out and peels away some skin, a dull hiss breezing through its iron teeth.

She doesn't scream, can't scream. Instead, she applies more pressure until her thumbs cramp and glass breaks. It wails deeply, like a bass dropping so hard you can feel the sound. She scoots backwards when its grip slips and reaches back for her gun. Rifle finally in hand, she lines up the barrel between the terminator's eyes.

"Die, you evil son of a bitch!"

She shoots until there are no more bullets, and even then she keeps pulling the trigger. Click, click, click. Shards of metal are scattered all over the studio. Click, click, click. The empty husk of metal is frozen as it straddles where she once was. Click, click, click. Its head is nearly pulverized. Click, click, click. The red glow of its eyes is gone.

She drops the gun in her lap. "F-Fuck you.

Maka falls limp against the wall behind her and the world goes dark.

* * *

"Ah, shit. Dog, don't touch the dead body. Not cool. We don't eat people."

The world decides to shed some light on her, but it's foggy and… wet? Is it the blood, because she knows she has to be sitting in a red puddle of herself. No, something wet is touching her. Oh god, is something actually licking her face?

"Dog, I said don't touch. That's sick, man."

Dog?

Maka groans. The dog stops licking and barks in her face.

"Holy shit!"

The world goes dark again.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time Maka wakes up, she feels something piercing her side and the pain shoots fire into her nerves. Naturally, she screams - only it comes out more like a gurgling sob than anything else.

"Hey, hey, hey, it's okay."

Everything is on fire and not okay, but her limbs feel heavy like lead, so all she can do is wriggle around to run from the pain.

Callused hands pin down her shoulders and lock her into place. "Look, I know it hurts, but you need stitches. Just hold still. It'll all be over soon, I promise."

Something sharp digs into Maka's side again, and she falls asleep screaming.

* * *

When Maka wakes again, her eyes are covered, or can she just not open them? Her entire body thrums with a dull ache. Not as sharp and agonizing as the terminator drilling its finger into her thigh, but still, everything is throbbing. At the center of it all is her right side, just over the curve of her otherwise nonexistent hip bone. She can still feel the ghost of a metal hand slipping into her lower ribcage.

Maka quickly shoves that memory out of her head before it can bloom.

If her eyes won't work, she'll just have to rely on her other senses to tell her what she can't see. Her survival training with Sid starts to kick in, reminding her to stay calm and assess the situation - panicking will only make things worse. So first, sense of smell. She sniffs and tries to suppress a wheeze. Does the room actually smell that strongly of vanilla?

Something loud and surprisingly warm sounds off next to her ear, popping her eardrum open like a cork - oh, she can hear now, and it's a lot.

"Shhh," a voice shushes. "What did I say about barking? They'll hear you, stupid." The voice is deep - a man's voice. Sounds oddly familiar, too, like in a dream.

An insistent whimper comes from where the sound was. Something scratches her arm, picking at her like someone would a scab, but also, strangely enough, gently? Careful not to hurt her?

"You're saying she's awake?"

There's the sound again, no doubt a bark.

The voice sighs. "I said no barking. C'mon, Dog, we've talked about this."

Another whimper, deeper and more affirming, answers him, along with a plop and a weird thumping noise that shakes her from below.

The darkness shielding her eyes slips away, leaving a damp and warm sensation in its wake. A wet hand towel. That's what covered her eyes. There's nothing to stop her from seeing any more. She blinks, as if to test her sight, and wonders why she has barely any light to work with.

"Hey, so you are awake. Damn."

An arrangement of scattered candles illuminates the dark room in a dim, warm light. Best guess, she's in a cramped studio apartment that's mostly bed and not much else - it's hard for her to conceptualize the layout in the flickering candlelight. From what she can see, there's food wrappers, cans, and water bottles scattered around on the floor that are mingling dangerously with clothes that smell too much like boy, and then like vanilla because the whole place smells like straight vanilla extract. All the candles must be vanilla bean scented.

His fingers snap in her face and her body jolts, making her wince.

"Sorry, sorry." His face is too dark to make out in this light. "Didn't mean to scare you. You were just... spacing out on me. I guess my people skills could use some work."

Maka opens her mouth to speak, but her throat is so dry and cracked she just coughs.

"Oh, water. I got it." His shadow disappears for a moment. Then, a cold metal kisses her lips and splashes water down her chin. "Sorry, my bad. Try taking a sip."

She does, and maybe the relieving sensation of her throat soaking up water like a sponge is too much for her, because the world suddenly flicks the switch and everything's dark again.

* * *

When the world decides to turn the lights back on, Maka feels naked, hit with a sudden slimy chill. Cold, but hot and sweaty, too. Her hand shakily lifts the bed sheet and reveals that she is shirtless and pantless. No plain white t-shirt or ripped blue jeans. When did she lose them? Her sweaty sports bra and underwear, coupled with some bloody bandages on her side and thigh, wave their hello from underneath the sheet at her blank stare. Not naked, but close enough.

The daylight sneaking through the window blinds gives her the gift of sight that dim candlelight never could, and she is undisputedly in the last place she'd ever imagine herself: a filthy bachelor pad.

Suddenly, the door to her right swings open, and something big, yellow, and fluffy zooms by her bed. She jumps and pulls the sheet to her chin, shuffling her body up toward the pillow and ignoring all the aches and pains.

Big, yellow, and fluffy turns out to be a dopey, barrel-chested Labrador that's all smiles and tongue. Speaking of tongue, Old Yeller rushes to her bedside and lays a big wet kiss on her cheek. His hot breath peppers her face and she gags. The dog's breath is rotten.

"Dog, heel." Said dog keeps crowding her face and sniffing. "Can't you listen for once? Back off, nosy."

Her captor/maybe caregiver pulls the dog back by its frayed collar. Conveniently, there's no tag jingling with a name on it. Dog - that's his name, she guesses - sits down and pants, looking up at the man with big doe eyes.

"Yeah, yeah," the man says, scratching behind the dog's ear. "You're adorable, I get it. Just stop drowning our guest in slobber."

Maka tests her voice. "Y-You named him Dog?"

He turns to face her, a little frazzled, hand pointing a hunting knife in her direction. "Shit. Just, wow, okay." He lowers the knife and clutches his shirt at his chest. A jagged pink line peeks out from under his collar and disappears again when he lets go. "You scared the ever-loving shit out of me. Jesus."

Maka openly stares, feasting her eyes on the man who hid in the dark the last time she was conscious. His stark white hair sticks out first, a little long and untamed. He's lean, swallowed up by the black leather jacket he wears, but she imagines he's pretty fit underneath - not that she cares, she's just being observant. She guesses he's around her age, maybe a tad bit older; his white hair and stubble along his jawline are oddly deceiving, but he looks too young in the face to be going gray.

She's hit suddenly by a flash of red when her eyes meet his. The kind of piercing red that pours ice in her veins. Her heart drops down into her gut and fear starts to coil in her chest.

As if he can sense her panic, he walks slowly to her bedside with his hands up in surrender. Maka instinctively backpedals on the bed and presses her back against the wall. In her head, she sees metal hands reaching for her throat again. She feels them reach inside her gut, twist into her thigh. Her hands frantically search for a gun that isn't there.

"Easy, easy. It's just albinism," he says, kneeling at the edge of the bed. "You could say I won the genetic lottery." He laughs but it sounds hollow. "Damn things stole my eyes. I had'em first… I think."

Maka is hyperventilating, chest heaving hard, stirring her wounds. Her aches have a little more bite now.

"My name is Soul," he says softly. "I'm not a machine. If I was, why would I bring you here and patch you up? Hell, you know any terminators that keep a dog as a pet?"

Dog barks.

"Sorry. Best friend." Dog wags his tail in approval. "Point is, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm a friend. I promise."

Maka's breathing starts to relax as her eyes focus on his, no longer seeing the glowing red - instead, they look red like wine, too warm to be part of a machine. He is human. Flesh and blood, just like her.

Still, just because he isn't running on circuits doesn't mean she can trust him. People can be dangerous, too. And here, all alone and as injured as she is, she can't rely on the resistance's vetting process to clear him of any bad intentions. She's on her own on that front.

"Hey, uh, you look hot."

They both stare blankly at each other, his face slowly turning beet red while Maka wonders if she even has enough color in her face to match him.

"Err, I mean warm. Feverish." The back of his hand presses against her forehead and she flinches. "Shit, you're burning up."

Ah, that explains why she feels like a melting human popsicle - she's shivering and sweating bullets, what an awful combination.

Without much warning, Maka hears and feels him peeling the bandage off her side like a bandaid. Her body recoils, a sharp yelp escaping her lips. The way the blood sticks stubbornly to the gauze makes her feel like her skin is being stripped off. He rips it off quickly, and she pulls away from the sting it leaves behind.

Soul examines her - which, if she did have any color left in her face, she'd be burning red, because all she has is her old sports bra and panties to keep her covered since she ditched the bedsheet in her scramble to run away from his red eyes. She feels uncomfortably exposed.

Only, if her nakedness has any effect on him, he doesn't let it show. He moves with a stiff air of professionality, face impossibly neutral. His finger gently brushes the stitched-up seam where the terminator's hand tore her apart. The would-be scar is an angry, nerve prickling red. She bites back a wince.

"It's infected," he says, grimly.

She doesn't think her face can get any paler, but it does. "F-Fuck."

Of all the ways Maka imagined her own death - most involving going out in a blaze of glory - dying of an infection never made the list.

"You need antibiotics."

Soul doesn't waste any time playing his caregiving act. He cleans both wounds with hand soap and water, which doesn't feel nice, but she knows it's necessary to help fight the infection and keep her thigh from spitting puss, too. Then he fixes her up with new bandages. She wonders how long before they're wet with red.

All the while he stays dangerously quiet, as if he knows her clock is ticking. His mouth keeps opening and closing like he wants to say something but can't decide what.

"Y-You didn't answer my question," she tries, hoping to avoid any talk about her dwindling mortality. Antibiotics are hard to come by these days. More than likely, Maka has to fight this infection on her own, and she doesn't know if she has the strength to beat it.

Soul blinks owlishly at her. "What?"

"Why'd you name him Dog?"

At the sound of his name, Dog tilts his head at them, looking far too innocent for his own good.

Soul scratches his neck sheepishly. "When I first met him, he responded to it, so… I don't know, I guess it just stuck?"

"Not very original," she deadpans. Her head slowly starts to swirl as the fever takes hold of her in its icy, hot grip.

"Never said it was," he says, shrugging. "Speaking of names, you never told me yours."

"Maka." She doesn't know why she coughs up her name so easily, but she does. Maybe the fever is starting to make her delirious.

He smiles lopsidedly. "All right, Maka. You need to get some rest if you want this fever to break. Doctor's orders."

"You're not a doctor," she mumbles defiantly. Her rebellious phase is short-lived, though, as she shifts into a comfy position and lets Soul pull the sheet over her again.

"Get some sleep, Maka. You've earned it."

Maka's gone before her head even hits the pillow.

* * *

When Maka wakes again, the room is spinning. The bed is soaked with sweat and blankets her in a chill. She can feel a migraine coming on. Her brain already feels like it's sloshing around in her skull if she so much as lifts her chin or props her head a certain way. All her aches and pains pulsate like they've grown their own heartbeat.

Something wet dabs her forehead. "It's getting worse."

Maka coughs, producing a painful echo in her chest and side.

"You need medicine…" Soul's voice trails off into nothingness. Then, after some shuffling around, "I need you to hold on for me, Maka. I'll be back."

Maka reaches out blindly to grab his sleeve but comes up empty. He's gone. She drifts off again to the sound of Dog crying at the door.

* * *

Maka comes to, again, to the sound of Soul stumbling into the room. His off-balance momentum sways him into a coffee table, and knobby elbows hit the hardwood while a heavy groan falls from his lips. With one, maybe two kicks, the door closes behind him. His hand finds his shoulder under his jacket, stained with blood, and she can hear the way his breath trips, how he suffers the sting.

She may be too tired, too weak to fully collect her thoughts under the fever's fog, but the language of pain - that , she can speak and understand intimately like a second tongue.

"S-Soul?" Dog barks alongside her trembling voice. "You're hurt."

He tries to laugh, but his chest tightens and it sounds more like a wheeze. "No shit."

"What," she breaks into a small coughing fit, kindling her sore abdomen. "H-Happened."

Soul sinks to the floor and crawls to her on all fours, ignoring Dog's insistent nuzzling, and rests his back against the bed frame. He exhales like a huge weight has been lifted from his shoulders - even if one is currently soaking red down his shirt. He shimmies his jacket down his arms while Dog mauls his face with whimpering kisses.

"M'fine," he mumbles. "Quit it."

Dog lies down in front of him, eyes round and watery with puppy-dog concern. Soul tries to push him away with his foot but the stubborn pooch doesn't budge. Out of childish spite, Soul tosses his jacket on Dog's head. He yips, like he's been insulted, and comically wiggles around until his nose breaks free with a sleeve dangling from his muzzle.

"Pfft. You're the worst."

Dog blows a puff of air out his nose.

"Soul." Maka reaches and grabs a tuft of his hair, pulling only slightly to get his attention.

This man, her unwarranted caregiver, is an enigma to her. A part of her wants to trust him for all he's done to keep her breathing, but all the unanswered questions surrounding him put her on edge. His actions, his intentions, are all unclear. It doesn't help that most of their interactions involve her too drunk on pain to really talk and end with her passing out.

"What. Happened ."

He leans into her touch, surprising her; he must sense this, too, because then he says, "Sorry. I, uh, might be a little touch starved."

Maka is thankful he can't see her face, because the dusting of pink covering her cheeks is embarrassing.

"As for your question," his breath hitches when her fingers graze his inflamed shoulder, "p-people. Bad people. Some trigger-happy bastard with a tacky nose ring and a foul mouth on him. Didn't like me picking around his stuff - but I say finder's keepers… losers can suck it. So, he shot at me, bullet grazed my shoulder, I got away, and here we are."

"Why?" There's too many layers to unpack in her simple inquiry - why did you bring me here, why are you helping me, why do you care enough to risk your own life - but she chooses to let him answer at his own discretion.

"Oh, I almost forgot." His hand rummages around in his jeans pocket and pulls out a small white bottle. He holds it up to her, shaking up the small tablets inside with what she imagines is a smug smile on his face. "These should help with the infection."

Her jaw drops. "No way."

"Yep. Antibiotics do still exist. Here, take some."

Soul empties a couple of pills into her hand and she quickly swallows them dry. Maka has been done with this infection and fever since… well, since yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that - just how long has she been cooped up here, anyway?

"H-How long?"

"Hmm?"

"How long," she says, clearing her throat. "How long have I been here?"

Soul starts drumming his fingers on his knee. "Hard to say. Time passes differently now, y'know."

He's lying. His eyes focus on anything that isn't her and his fingers anxiously busy themselves in his lap - both nervous ticks. He rolls his bad shoulder a little and she imagines him cringing at the way the open skin creases. She knows a thing or two about skin pulling apart, her own body a case in point.

"I know you know, Soul," Maka says. She rests her hand on his good shoulder, squeezing gently. "Just tell me. I can take it."

She thinks about Blake and the now-dead survivors back at the radio station, about the gunfire coming to an abrupt halt while she laid unconscious in a pool of her own blood, wondering: can she take it?

He sighs, sounding resigned. "About two weeks. Seemed like you really needed to sleep off… well, everything ."

Two weeks. Now that's enough to sober her up.

The universe must have a sick sense of humor, because when Soul says two weeks, she can feel that lost time sink into her bones and twist her stomach into knots. Her bunker arrest punishment picks at her brain, reminding her of the resistance - Liz, Patty, Ox, Harvar, Sid, Tsubaki, her father, Blake - and how inherently wrong she's been lately. Wrong to attack the drone, wrong to leave survivors behind for selfish reasons, wrong to leave the bunker on some suicide rescue mission - wrong, wrong, wrong.

Wrong, to assume that she could ever live up to her father's legacy and lead the resistance to victory over Skynet. She doesn't have what it takes, she never has. A part of her - the part that's shattered without an ounce of self-respect - believes she deserves this pain and then some.

"Maka?"

She laughs, a little raspy, until tears stream down her face. She can't remember when her borderline maniacal laughter evolved into chest-heaving sobbing, but here she is, struggling just to breathe. Her mangled body feels like a punching bag with each bubbling gasp for air.

"Whoa, hey, you're having a panic attack. You need to breathe."

Maka holds her head in her hands. "I… I messed up. I don't know if I can fix this." If Blake is alone somewhere, fighting for his life, or worse, dead on that rooftop - how does she live with that kind of guilt? How does she move forward?

"Maka, look at me."

She refuses, clamping her eyes shut as if the pseudo-darkness can shield her from the rest of the world and her failures.

"Maka."

She feels his hands cup over hers, how his thumbs gently rub over her knuckles, and the tenderness woven into the action shocks her. Her eyes fly open. Soul is right there, eyes looking at her intently like she's all that matters, which doesn't make any sense because he doesn't know her at all. If he knew her, really knew her, he would've left her there to die in that studio.

"Breathe with me," he says, inhaling deeply. "In, and out. C'mon, do it with me. Please?"

The way her chest steadily rises and falls in sync with his breathing answers for her.

Soul offers her a small smile. "That's it, you've got it."

"Why." Maka hopes he can read her intentions clearly - she needs to know why he's doing this, why she's even remotely worth the trouble. How can someone care so much for a complete stranger?

"Because," he starts, a little timid, before swallowing a lump of courage. "If I was hurt like that and all alone, I'd want somebody to give a shit." He pauses, seemingly lost in thought, eyes glassy and unfocused. "I want to believe that somebody would help me, so I helped you. Is that so hard to believe?"

"I-I mean, yes," she says, stumbling over her words. "Sounds too good to be true."

He appears to acknowledge her point. "I know, but I'm telling the truth. You were all alone and I wanted to help. It really is that simple."

"... okay."

"Just 'okay'?"

"You took a bullet for me," she says, bluntly.

"I didn't say I was smart ." His hands drop, but his face stays dangerously close. "Look, guys do crazy things for pretty girls all the time."

Maka is still running a temperature, so if her cheeks feel like molten lava is trying to erupt from her pores, it has to be because of the fever. The only alternative being that maybe, just maybe, Soul's words are enough to light a spark in her… but she hardly knows the guy! She couldn't possibly be interested in him or what he thinks of her. She's not that type of girl. Ask anybody, she's more warrior, more "career" driven. Boys are the least of her worries, especially caring, snarky ones with white hair and red eyes.

"That didn't come out right. What I meant was, uh," Soul starts to sputter, which is a little endearing, much to her chagrin. "Well you are pretty, I can't take that back. But that's not why I took a bullet… well, you were sick, you needed meds, and I got'em. Case closed."

When he's done defending himself, he sits back, crosses his arms - jostling his bad shoulder, of course, though he ignores the pain - and lets out a big harumph.

For someone who, at first glance, tries to check off all the boxes to prove he bleeds cool, Soul is, without a doubt, a huge dork.

"Thank you." For everything, though it remains unspoken. Only, she's confident he can complete the sentiment on his own.

His pout is replaced by a soft smile. "Don't mention it."

As if he knows Maka could use a get-out-of-jail-free card to avoid Soul's warm and fuzzy stare, Dog jumps between them and lays a big sloppy kiss on her mouth. His putrid, slobbery muzzle is on her lips. She quickly shoves Dog toward Soul - who is laughing, the jerk - while she tries to spit out all the dog drool that so graciously slipped past her teeth.

"Gah, gross!"

"Aw, he likes you~"

The resounding yelp - plus a yip from an excited retriever - after a well-placed kick is like music to Maka's ears.

"Hey, not cool. I'm injured," Soul whines.

Maka rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Join the club. Now, go grab that dental floss and let me take a crack at that shoulder."

"Isn't your head still a little foggy?"

"Mayyyyybe," she teases, satisfied by how his face loses some color. "Oh come on, don't you trust me?"

Soul doesn't answer, just slides off the bed and drags his feet to the dresser, where Maka is certain he'll pull out some dental floss and a flask full of vodka from the top drawer.

* * *

"What's your favorite color?"

"Green," Soul answers while scraping his spoon obnoxiously at the bottom of his Spaghettios can. Like he needs to collect every last drop of sauce. He lays belly-down on the floor with Dog, sharing a spoonful with the needy pooch here and there.

Meanwhile, Maka nurses her chicken noodle soup like a civilized human being at the coffee table. Her days of wearing nothing but a sports bra and underwear are over, having graduated to grey sweats and an oversized Nirvana t-shirt. Comfy, nothing tight to bother her torn skin. And she's clean - no dry, crusty blood and grime - thanks to the running water in one of the apartments upstairs.

Her wounds are officially healed enough to keep Soul's mother hen comments at bay as she straddles the line between bed rest and stretching her legs. Soon, she'll be strong enough to leave the nest.

Except, Maka doesn't think she's ready to leave this comfortable, anonymous existence just yet. She knows home is the resistance, fighting the war against the machines, but they can make do without her, right? They can wait. She's been nothing but a burden lately, anyway. Too many mistakes, too much blood slipping through her fingers - she needs time to reflect, Papa said, so here she is, reflecting … avoiding. Playing house with a stranger and his dopey labrador.

"Oh," she teases. "Green like my eyes?"

"You got me. Totally picked green for that reason," he says flatly.

Maka rolls her eyes. "Didn't we promise we'd be honest with each other? Tell me the real reason."

About a week after the invisible wall between them began to crumble one stitch in a torn up shoulder at a time, she and Soul started playing a game - ask any question, stupid or deep, and get an honest answer. To get to know each other. To really know each other, outside of his caregiver act and their strange connection that makes it far too easy for her to trust him.

So far, she's learned things like he likes raw fish (disgusting), wearing overpriced leather because he thinks it looks cool, the smell of vanilla (if the candles are any tell), and listening to jazz records on a vintage record player he dug up on a supply run. Actually, that's how he found her in the first place. He was scavenging for a new record to add to his collection.

He shrugs, shoving the last spoonful of sauce and pasta noodles in his mouth. "Green means nature, growth, life. It's not cold like metal and those damn machines out there. It's a positive color, y'know? It's not tainted. Not like red." He stops and looks up at her from licking leftover sauce around the rim of the can. "You do have pretty eyes. Really easy to get lost in them sometimes."

Slowly, but surely, Maka is getting better at hiding her sparks - blushing, mostly, in any shade or size it decides to appear. Her soup can has her full attention now to avoid his stare. She could get back at him, tell him that his eyes are more warm and inviting than he gives them credit for, but she stays tight lipped. No need to add more fuel to the already bewildering fire.

"Ahh, sure," she says, sweeping the mushy comment under the rug. "Your turn."

Soul clatters his spoon around in the can. When he's anxious or deep in thought, Maka's noticed that he likes to keep his hands busy - he'll tap, scratch, play with something he's holding. It's his tell. He's about to ask something much deeper than what's her favorite color.

"Do you remember where you were on Judgment Day?"

This question hits her hard, like a brick wall, or an anvil dropping in a cartoon, just, hard. She's never told the story, about the military base, about her father's darkest secret. Never. Maka has always believed she'd carry that secret to her grave. Nothing quite kills a rebellion like knowing the father of it helped launch Skynet, their sworn enemy.

"Yes." Short and sweet is all she can manage. The truth is tedious, heartbreaking, and she isn't ready to tell it. Not now, not ever.

Short and sweet isn't enough to get her off the hook, though.

"What do you remember?" Soul asks, innocently, unknowingly putting a gun to her head.

He can't know the truth, but there's not a mean bone in his body, not a drop of ill intent to be found. His eyes sparkle with a curiosity that is impossible for her to shoot down. Doesn't help that Dog's posture and marble eyes mimic Soul's to a T. They're both sprawled out on the floor, looking up at her, ready for her to spill her guts. It's infuriating, especially now as she considers indulging them.

She can bend the truth to her will, right?

"It was warm. Really warm. And not just the weather, I was running a fever that day. But I went to school anyway because I had a test that I absolutely refused to miss." She wasn't sick, but how else does she explain her father pulling her out of school? "I ended up barfing in the middle of the test all over my test."

Soul snorts and tries to cover it up, failing.

"Hey, it's not funny. It was traumatizing." Even if this part of her story didn't actually happen, just the idea of it is enough to make her squirm in her seat.

"Sorry, sorry," he says with a wave of his hand. "Please, continue."

She soldiers on, her words running on a numbing autopilot. "Papa picked me up from school and took me for a drive. I was the kind of kid who liked long car rides when I was sick. With the windows down… fresh air helps clear my head." The truth likes to sneak in, but only in short, inconsequential bursts. "The road was winding and led up into the mountains. Near the top, you had this perfect view of the lake - the water was so clear, it looked like a sheet of glass."

Memories of her father pulling her along begin to flood her mind, his voice empty and void of closure, but she stays strong, keeps that part hidden.

"His car broke down at the top, stranding us," she says, voice clipped. "Next thing I know, I see these white streams shooting up into the sky."

"Nuclear warheads," Soul says, face pointed and grim.

Maka nods. "We were just outside our area's blast zone. It was kind of like having front row seats to the end of the world. One second, civilization is in full swing, and the next, over 3 billion people… dead." Her autopilot fizzles out, glassy eyes drifting down to her feet as she finds her last words. "The world I knew, and most of the people in it, gone. Just like that." Her father's ugly legacy, the one she never wanted.

A rigid silence stretches between them, daring someone to break it.

"I'm sorry," Soul says, rolling to his feet. The underlying sadness in his voice is genuine. "I shouldn't have asked. Wasn't very cool."

"Yeah…" her voice trails off a little, until, "what about you?"

Soul drops his empty can on the table next to hers. "Hmm?"

"You know… Judgment Day. Everybody's got a story. I told you mine, you tell me yours. It's only fair."

Her eyes must cut too deeply into his, because he recoils, showing a glimpse of something she hasn't seen from him since she woke up sweaty and overrun by infection: fear. His eyes kindle with a panic that evaporates quickly into something morose. Grief-stricken. There's a ghost living in his eyes. He tries to blink it away, to play off his spooked surprise as nothing more than a hoax, but it's too late. She can't unsee it.

"Soul?"

"I don't know," he says, deflated. Then, a rising frustration takes hold of him and he hits both cans off the table. It takes a lot of willpower on her part not to jump or reach for a gun that still isn't there. "I can't remember. Doesn't matter how hard I try. I just… can't."

"That's okay. It was a long time ago. You're lucky you can't remember - most people would kill to forget that day."

Wrong choice of words.

"No," Soul growls, baring his sharp teeth - another odd feature that sometimes makes her question his human status. "I can't remember. Anything. Not just J-Day, but all of it. There is no 'before' for me." With his back against the wall, he sinks down to the floor, face crestfallen as he finds his voice again. "No past, no future."

"What are you saying?" she asks, feeling a chill creep up her spine. Something doesn't feel right.

Soul speaks slowly and numbly. "I woke up with a blank slate about six months ago. I… I can't remember who I was before. Who I really am ." He pulls a chain out of his pocket, thumbing the little ring piece dangling from it. "This was in my pocket when I woke up. It's engraved 'to Soul,' so that's how I got my name." He laughs halfheartedly. "Stupid, right?"

Dog rises from his spot on the floor and starts pawing Maka's knee, whimpering.

"Still trust me?" There's doubt plaguing the question like he knows his confession is going to push her away.

Well, his confession is shocking. All that lost time, not knowing who you are, waking up in the middle of a machine apocalypse. She can't even imagine what Soul went through to get to where he is now. Maka doesn't believe in coincidences - his amnesia does raise a lot of red flags - but he must not know her if he thinks this will scare her off. After all he's done for her, having a little faith is the least she can do.

Maka gets down on her hands and knees and crawls to the spot next to him, planting her stubborn roots. She hip-checks him to steal his attention away from the patch of carpet between his knees. He groans, decidedly done with using his words. He's acting more like a petulant child in time out than the grown man who saved her life.

"I do," she says, answering the question floating between them. "Feels like I shouldn't, but I do. I really do. It's… scary how much I trust you."

"Gotta be my devilish charm."

She scoffs. "Definitely not the type of girl to fall for that crap."

"I know," he mumbles, tilting his head so his cheek rests on her shoulder. Maka's chest constricts and breathing becomes difficult. How long can she hold her breath? Can he hear her heartbeat like this?

"I'm sorry you can't remember your past. That sucks." She is hardly poetic, but the message should be clear.

"Thanks," he says gruffly. His breath is warm, sinking into her shirt sleeve.

She considers her next words carefully. "Your name is Soul. You like the color green because it means life and growth and good. You wear that leather jacket because it looks cool and you are cool. I guess. Don't let that get to your head." Too late, she can feel his smirk wrinkle her sleeve. "You listen to old jazz records that put me to sleep and think my taste in music is god awful, but I forgive you. Even if I think trap music is real music, and you don't."

He chuckles.

"You took in some strays. One fluffy, one bloody, and gave them a home. Made them whole again. So… I guess that's just part of your 'charm.'"

The quiet after her speech's finale nearly eats her alive.

"Thank you, Maka," he says softly, with a hint of reverence. "You're the coolest partner ever."

Odd, and deceptively suggestive word choice, but Maka doesn't call him out on it. Especially not now as she silently debates whether her sleeve is getting wet or if it's just her imagination.

For a fleeting moment, she wants to confide in Soul about the resistance, about her murky inheritance that keeps her up at night. If he trusts her enough to tell her about his amnesia, surely she can return the favor this way. Hell, she could even try recruiting him. He's lived this long in the heart of the city, dodging machines and pulling off fairly successful raids. His skills could prove valuable for the resistance. Except when Maka thinks she's ready to tell the truth about who she is and where she comes from, her gut clenches and her palms grow sweaty.

Perhaps another day. Easier to live anonymously now. To not be seen as her father's defective successor for the resistance, but as a lonely girl just trying to scrape by in a dying world.

Dog weasels his way in and settles across their laps, perching his chin on her knee as he licks his chops of any leftover sauce. He sighs loudly - gotta be a lot of work looking after her and Soul, she guesses, quirking a small smile.

"So nosy," she coos, scratching behind his ear. The comfy canine hums contently.

They sit like this, together, for a long time, too lost in each other's warmth and comfort to move. For a moment, all the bad in the world is forgotten - Skynet, machines, the dead, his amnesia, her guilt, her injuries, everything. She lets this new reality loll her to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Maka breathes in the fresh air and feels an immediate rejuvenation. She stands outside Soul's apartment complex entrance, arms open wide, skin soaking up the desert sun, feeling more alive than she has in weeks. Not even the sight of a dead city on the brink of collapse can break her good spirits. She is on cloud nine. Void of responsibility, of bed rest, of picking up Soul's dirty clothes when he's not around for her to yell at him to do it himself. She is liberated.

Gone are the grey sweats and the baggy band t-shirt from her days hermitting - recovering , Soul would say - and now she is suited up in clothes that fit her perfectly, scavenged from a neighboring apartment. Cargo pants and a slick black t-shirt. A nice upgrade from the white to hide any grime or blood the outside world has to offer.

"Don't you think you're being a little dramatic?" Soul remarks, clearly rolling his eyes at her as he taps his foot impatiently. Dog sits next to him with his tongue hanging out, panting.

Her grouchy roommate is undoubtedly not on cloud nine, having been adamant earlier about her staying at the apartment while he and Dog go out on a supply run. He's still bitter about losing their fight. Says he's not convinced she's ready to face reality again.

Apparently, Maka needs to come to terms with her "psychological" wounds. A little PTSD (if she even has it) won't kill her. She's dealt with the kind of guilt that swallows you whole and spits you back out, all chewed up and broken. She'll live. Her lacerations have healed and scarred nicely, and her range of motion is back to normal thanks to her own physical therapy routine: lots of stretching and yoga. She is back in tip-top shape no matter what Soul says.

"Nope," she says, smug. "I've waited forever this. Don't ruin it."

"You weren't kidding about the fresh air, huh?" She shoots him a look, prompting a quick follow-up. "You just seem… I don't know, cheerful? You're practically glowing."

"Well, what can I say? Can't stand being cooped up in a cage."

She throws the first punch, but Soul doesn't bite. Too cool to pick stupid fights. Or he's too tired, too defeated to try and argue with her again. The last time didn't go so well. Instead, he turns his back to her, running his hand over Dog's head in a half-pet.

"Come on. We should get moving."

* * *

The inner-city doesn't quite meet her expectations like she thought it would. For one thing, it's quiet. Too quiet. No machine babble, whirring propellers, or clunky steps booming in her ears. The resistance always assumed the machines liked to move inward, to weed out trapped survivors, but this eerie silence suggests the game has changed. Either that, or they've gotten better at hiding their presence.

Maka's hand finds her gun on her hip. Soul gave it back to her after their argument, gun belt and all. She never realized until now how much safer she feels with it on her person, and how naked she feels without it. How did she survive weaponless for so long?

"You good?" Soul watches her hand brush against the grip of her gun. He's fishing for evidence to prove that she isn't okay - that she's "psychologically" compromised - but he won't find anything. She is hardly a victim trapped inside her own head. No, she is a survivor, and she is healed. The sooner he gets that, the better.

Maka slips her hand in her pocket. "I'm fine, Soul. Really."

"If you say so."

They pass one street with cars lined up at least a couple of miles down the road, bumper to bumper, some doors swung open in a panic. A chunk of the traffic is lost in a pile of rubble from a collapsed building. For a moment, she wonders if there were any people inside when it fell, if she'd find any dry blood staining the cement crumbs. The moment passes. She moves forward. She is fine. The faint scream echoing in her head is only a dream. It, too, passes.

Soul leads her down an alley, overgrown with weeds and a dumpster that smells like something died in it. Of course, he walks behind the spoiled dumpster. She follows, pulling her shirt collar up over her nose, as if it'll help. Dog chews on what she thinks is a half-eaten rat next to her foot. She bites her lip to keep from screaming.

"You miss me, baby," Soul coos, blind to her dilemma, as he rips a tarp off of something she can't see from her current angle. Doesn't help that the rotting smell is making her eyes water.

He rolls out 'baby' and Maka's mouth drops.

" That's 'baby'? You've got to be joking."

"Nope." He sounds annoyingly smug. "This is my ride or die. Play nice with her."

A motorcycle? Really? More like an orange monstrosity with a cutesy sidecar sidekick. A bike won't save them from a terminator's trigger finger or an HK's plasma cannon. They'll be hopelessly exposed and easy to buck off - what about this thing is safe? This is far worse than all of Blake's death traps on wheels combined.

She shakes her head. "I am not riding on that thing. No way."

"Yes, way," Soul replies, smirking. He throws his leg over the bike, settles into the seat, and tosses her a helmet. "Now hop on. We don't have all day. Unless… you want to head back?"

"No!" She will not be benched. "Err, but isn't it loud? We'll give ourselves way."

"I've worked on the exhaust. Installed a slip-on muffler." At her puzzled look, he adds, "It's quiet, I promise. Just get on the bike, Maka."

As if to spite her, Dog jumps into the sidecar and nestles in, wagging his tail innocently like he didn't just throw her under the bus. Or should she say bike?

"See? Even Dog thinks you're being ridiculous."

"I am not ."

"Prove it."

Maka huffs, securing the too-big helmet over her head, and drags her feet until her toes kiss the bike's rear tire. Her memory draws her back to the drone. She remembers how she rolled across the intersection on a skateboard - a freakin' piece of wood on wheels - with nothing but one shot between her and a bloodthirsty machine. If she's brave enough to pull that off, she can surely ride some stupid bike.

Soul grins. "Hop on and hold on tight."

"Hold on to what?" she asks, perching on the seat behind him. She doesn't see any handgrips to brace against.

He stays deceptively quiet. The bike roars to life, jumping forward, and Maka yelps, chest driving into Soul's back as her arms instinctively wrap around his waist. He laughs, rumbling underneath her fingertips.

"Looks like you figured it out just fine - ack! What the hell?"

" Not funny." Her hand stays locked and loaded, brushing the base of his neck. "Now drive, biker boy."

He snorts. "Did you really just say that?"

"Just drive, Soul," she growls, ignoring the pink tint swirling in her cheeks.

"Yes, ma'am."

The bike jumps again, and it takes all of Maka's strength not to hit him upside the head again while he steers them out of the alley.

* * *

Soul parks the bike outside a pharmacy on the sidewalk, near the front door for a quick getaway if they need it. She really hopes they don't.

Maka eyes all the windows shattered on the ground, not feeling very optimistic. This place has been raided several times. Shelves are torn apart to the point where it's hard to make heads or tails of any aisles. Looks more like a trash hoarder's haven than a CVS. Judging by the brownish-red mingling with the broken glass on the sidewalk, it's seen bloodshed, too.

"This place is trashed. Not worth scavenging here."

"Hmm," Soul answers, unphased by the scene. He whistles and his yellow lab companion materializes by his side. "Dog, search."

Dog barks, raising the hairs on the back of her neck, and hurdles through the broken window. Maka is suddenly sling-shotted back in time, legs flailing in midair as she barrels through exploding glass. She digs her nails into her palms and the memory fades to black. She wakes up again.

"Maka?" Soul stands in the doorway, brow pinched in concern. He doesn't think she's ready.

She pushes past him. "There's nothing here. I mean, come on, Soul, a pharmacy? This place is way past its expiration date. Been robbed too much."

"You never know." At her pointed look, he shrugs. "I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy."

Soul kicks through the debris - mostly broken cardboard boxes, bottles, cans and wrappers - and pretends to take inventory, as if there's anything worth taking. He picks up a smashed case of water and checks it. The contents are squeezed dry. What part of this place has had a bullseye on its roof for raids since day one does he not understand?

Dog barks from behind the registers and she nearly jumps out of her skin - if, by chance, Maka ever stumbles across a muzzle, she'll slap it on the mutt faster than grease lightning to keep him quiet. They're in enemy territory. Doesn't he know that terminators are noise sensitive? The loudmouth fixes his front paws on the counter, signaling them over, tongue dangling. He barks again. She cringes. Obviously he does not.

"Quiet!" Soul yells, rushing the counter. She doesn't miss how his eyes hurry to the windows, watching, waiting. Glass half full, her ass. "Whatcha got there, boy? Show me."

Maka hears something with rough edges drag against the floor as she stalks toward the windows, too paranoid to join her pair of supply run aficionados at the front counter. Somebody needs to keep watch. If any terminators were drawn by the noise, they'd be cut off from their only exit, and hiding out in this pigsty isn't exactly on her bucket list.

Maka hauls herself through the window, wincing when a piece of glass cuts her palm open. The blood slowly streaks between her fingers. She watches, lost in a daze, her mind being pulled somewhere else. Out of the present. The ghost of a sharp, metal hand echoes in her side, and a bubble of air siezes in her throat.

"Hah! Knew this place wasn't a lost cause." The sound of jostling cans fills the air like wind chimes. "Some sorry bastard must've dropped the basket and kicked'em under the counter in a hurry. Corn, peas, tuna, beans, pineapple slices, more Spaghettios - we hit the jackpot!"

Maka's butt hits the ground, head tucked between her knees. She struggles to steady her breathing. In and out, in and out. Wash, rinse, repeat. One hand cradles her side while the other grips the back of her thigh - they ache like she's reliving her fight with the terminator all over again. She feels an invisible finger drill into her flesh, but she doesn't scream. Can't scream. This, too, will pass.

"Yo, Maka? Where are you ... Maka! "

The moment passes.

"H-Here," she calls, voice shakier than she'd like. She doesn't want to scare him, or, if she's being completely honest with herself, prove him right. For all she knows, being out here again behind enemy lines is having an effect on her. These memory flashes are vivid, hard to push through once she's caught under their spell, and coming out of them is taxing. It's like she's still stuck in that studio, desperately reaching for her gun as the machine crawls up her body to finish the job.

Maka listens to Soul's hurried footsteps - followed elegantly by a harsh thump and a string of curses - and focuses on the sound to keep her mind from running astray. His clumsy background noise is oddly therapeutic.

"You good?" he asks from afar, likely nursing his bruised ego (and bottom) on a pile of cans.

"Just… peachy. No machines yet. Looks like we're still in the clear."

She lifts her head, heavy with ghosts, and her eyes immediately dart across the street - with the flashes, comes a spike of adrenaline, and incredible sensitivity to movement. Perhaps she spoke too soon. Except she doesn't see any light flashing off of metal or the barrel of a minigun peeking around the corner. Nothing machine-like. What she actually sees for what feels like the longest twenty seconds of her life is inexplicably human.

Blue eyes paralyzed with, first, fear, then a quiet curiosity, a question, asking, who are you? They shift between her and the bike, scrutinizing. He doesn't stay in her line of sight for too long, though, and she barely has time to take in his short crop of blonde hair and hollow cheeks before he disappears down the alley. She swears another boy follows him, but she can't make out much else.

Maka jumps to her feet. "Wait! Come back!"

"Who are you yelling at? Thought this was s'posed to be a covert operation."

She spins to face Soul, who's standing in the doorway, looking at her like she just sprouted a second head.

"I just saw someone. A boy, not much younger than us. He was standing over there."

He follows her finger, straightening his back out of his trademark slouch. "Yeah, well, he's gone now. To hell with him."

"You can't be serious." He doesn't offer an explanation for his dismissal, opting instead to play with balancing the basket of cans on his handlebars. " Soul ."

"What? We don't trust strangers, Maka." He starts kneading his shoulder subconsciously. "Not all people are good."

Her last mission weasels into her thoughts, catching on the tip of her tongue. "What if they are good people? People who need our help. We could help them, Soul. They could help us. Safety in numbers - it's a real thing."

These are survivors she could've saved, can still save. She can't just abandon them because Soul has trust issues.

"They?" Ah, probably shouldn't have let that little tidbit slip. "Shit, Maka. You saw more than one? How many?"

"Just two. I think… but you're not listening to me!"

He groans, running his fingers through his hair. "No, you're not listening. The last time I played stranger danger, a wackjob put a bullet in my shoulder!"

"It only grazed you," she says quietly.

"Not the point," he growls. "How do you know they're not with the guy that shot me?"

Maka purses her lips. She doesn't know, but shouldn't the fear she saw in his eyes say something? It's not like he pulled a gun on her, shooting first, asking questions later - she could tell he had questions on his mind, not a trigger finger.

"You didn't know if I was good or bad," she says. "You still helped me."

"I knew."

She blinks, taken aback. "What do you mean, you knew?"

"You just have this air about you, I don't know. You give off good vibes?" His eyes land on his feet, and, dare she say, is there some red dusting his cheeks? "You're the hero type. Brave, fearless... and so willing to sacrifice yourself for others. I didn't have to know you to get that much."

She's ready to ask him to explain more - because, let's be honest, her, the hero type, with all her bloody mistakes riding her coattails? As if. But a deep howl cuts her off before she has the chance.

"Dog, quiet." No dice, Dog keeps howling. Soul snags him by the collar. "I said quiet. "

Dog's howling settles down to a whimper, his snout sniffing and pointing north down the road. In the middle of an intersection a couple of blocks away sits a rusted-out school bus that's more skeleton than anything else. No tires, missing pieces of its siding, folding doors hanging by a thread. If Dog's eyes had lasers, he would've burned a hole clean through it by now.

"Soul."

"I know," he says. The tension is palpable. "Something's not right."

In seconds, Soul is on his knees next to the bike and tinkering with the sidecar, using some tools tucked inside the seat. He drops a few nuts and bolts as his hands quickly work in the space between them. Maka frowns - seriously, she thinks, is now really the time to play with his bike?

The roar of a foreign engine comes from the north, knocking a gust of wind into Maka's sails - trouble, they have to run. Deep machine babble echoes between buildings, followed by a gear shift, a throttle revving up not one, but two engines, twins. Now they really have to run.

"Moto-Terminators," she says numbly, face void of any color. Oh, the irony of running into homicidal motorcycles, of all things, after hitching a ride on Soul's orange monstrosity. These terminators are incredibly agile and quick, designed to weave effortlessly around any obstacle in their path. Persistent little buggers, too.

" Shit. " Soul kicks the sidecar to the curb, surprising her. Dog yips and bounces away from the falling tin can. Then he mounts his bike in a hurry, hands shaky with the keys as he tries to get the engine running. "Gonna have to make do. Dog, home ."

Dog barks and scampers away, disappearing down a tunnel of parked cars.

Maka watches him go, shocked. "Where's he going?"

"Like I said, home. Safer for him to go on foot. S'not like the machines will chase him while we're around."

Maka jumps on the seat behind him and risks a glance over her shoulder. The bus still stands, a giant piece of scrap metal blocking the way, until a loud blast spins it like a top. Rusted wheel wells drag on the asphalt and spit sparks. The sound it makes grates horribly in her ears. Soul loses his balance, shocked by the blast, and they both fall against a parked car before the bike can get a running start. The basket of cans falls to the ground, and she bites back a wince. Her injured thigh hit a door handle.

"Shit, shit, shit." Soul pushes against the car to rebalance the bike. "Fuck, we needed to be gone, like, yesterday."

Maka peeks over her shoulder again, just in time to see two black darts glide around the bus, red eyes glaring in their direction. Of all things, why Moto-Terminators. Decked out motorcycles that, instead of a passenger, carry a metal husk loaded with ammunition, plasma emitters and more fuel. Their specs always baffled her - how can something be that fast, and carry all that firepower to boot?

She gulps. Can Soul's bike outrun them?

"Soul!"

He revs the engine. "Hold on!"

They weave in and out of frozen traffic with practiced ease, but the terminators stay hot on their heels. If Soul so much as takes a straight shot down a row of cars, they'll be blown to bits by minigun fire or plasma blasts - far worse than being spun around like that bus. The standstill traffic acting as a buffer is the only thing keeping them alive right now. But the little speed demons are starting to close the gap.

"Shit," she says, cheek pressed against his leather jacket. They can't outrun them.

Soul takes a tight turn at the next intersection, nearly skinning their knees on the pavement, and bolts into the traffic jam she saw earlier. He dodges lanes with open car doors, burning rubber with each shift. Only, the gaps between cars are closing. It's too tight to change lanes. They're stuck on a straight shot. One that will lead them into the pile of collapsed rubble in the next three miles or so.

Soul bangs his fist on the handgrip. "Goddammit!"

Twin engines rumble close behind them now, thrumming with the thrill of the hunt as they close in on their prey. She can hear their pulse emitters charging, their miniguns start to spin in anticipation. They're close to locking on.

Maka doesn't think, just acts. She twists around in her seat, going back to back with Soul, and unholsters her gun.

"Maka, what the hell are you doing? " His hand blindly reaches back to hold her in place, gripping her uninjured thigh. "Are you insane? Hold onto me before you fall off!"

She scowls, struggling to steady her aim. "Just drive, Soul."

"Maka, this is suicide - "

"I said drive! "

Soul begrudgingly speeds ahead, grumbling curses to himself. Cursing her, most likely. He tightens his grip on her thigh. She appreciates the sentiment - him not wanting her to fly off the bike and all - but doesn't he realize how hard it is to focus with his hand on her like this?

Maka takes slow, deep breaths to keep her gun anchored, her aim true. She trains her crosshairs on the flashes of red swerving between cars behind them, until one maneuvers into their lane. Its red headlight glares at her as it prepares to unleash hell. Only, it'll never have the satisfaction.

She fires, shattering the terminator's red eye. It pivots, losing control, and crashes into a pick-up truck. The instant its hot ammunition makes contact with the truck's gas tank, kaboom.

"Holy shit!"

The bike swivels, almost tossing her, but Soul levels it out and locks one of his arms with hers to keep her from swan diving into the nearest windshield. He lets go once she resettles. She thanks him under her breath, a little shaken.

"Just so you know, you are officially the craziest person I have ever met," he yells into the wind. "But you sure are one hell of a shot."

"Don't thank me yet! There's still one more."

She's never once thought of terminators having hurt feelings, but the way this lone Moto-Terminator wheelies out of the fire, engine blaring, is giving her second thoughts. This feels personal now.

"Uh, Maka?"

Maka's eyes fixate on the raging terminator on their six, trying to line up her shot before they're blown away. " What? "

"Dead end."

Oh no.

She spins in her seat to look over his shoulder. Sure enough, the pile of cement crumbs - soaked in blood again, though she blinks that part away - cuts the traffic in half only a mile up ahead like a graveyard inviting them to pick out their own headstones. There's no side street or back alley to slip in and get out. No clear exit to make their getaway. They're trapped.

"We're running out of road," he says, without a drop of "glass half full" in his tone. She can feel how tense he is, back and shoulders taut like wire. His glass is running on empty.

The Moto-Terminator's warped babble, mixed with its roaring engine, shakes her very bones as the wreckage blocking their path draws closer. Maka turns to face the angry machine, gripping her gun. One shot. Just one shot, and they can stop the bike before they crash. She lines the barrel up with the terminator's piercing red eye. Her finger kisses the trigger.

But Maka isn't fast enough. A pulse blast overturns a car behind them, ruining her shot, and propels the bike forward in a powerful thrust.

"Brace yourself!"

In the blink of an eye, the mountain of rubble overshadows the scene and is ready to swallow them whole.

Maka is pushed off the bike and lands on the hood of a van. She can only watch, wheezing, as Soul makes a sharp turn and slides off the bike before the front tire can trip over any debris. His pride and joy, baby, skids into a cement block. When it hits, parts fly everywhere as it crushes in on itself. Baby is broken beyond repair.

Soul scrambles to his feet and they share a frantic look. "Get down!"

Maka rolls off the hood as a stream of bullets flies overhead. The sound of bullets eating metal is ear-splitting. Broken glass falls on her, scattering all over the road. She curls up next to the tire, covers her head, and waits for the end. This has to be it.

The end starts with brakes screaming to find traction, then a deep warped sound, much like the noise the terminator made in the studio when she jabbed its eyes out, before a jarring explosion. The end ends faster than it began. Charging pulse emitters are like ticking time bombs, and upon impact - boom! The Moto-Terminator is destroyed. Its charred remains are now a fine centerpiece amongst the rubble.

Maka stands, slowly, leaning on an old parking meter for support. She can feel the heat frisk her skin from the van's burnt husk, like an eggshell cracked perfectly in half with no crowning piece. The roof down to the car door handle, eviscerated.

"Soul?" she calls. When there's no answer, her heart plummets. "Soul!"

"Here." He crawls out from behind a crushed car mingling with the debris. "Still breathing."

Her eyes start to burn.

"Which is more than I can say for baby," Soul says, mournful. As if nearly losing his own life is forfeit. "She deserved better than this." He finds his footing, and Maka notices a slight limp in his step. "Maybe… maybe I can save her."

"She's dead."

"I can try to perform motorcycle… CPR?"

Is he really cracking jokes? Now?

"You're such an idiot!" she cries, frustrated.

"Says the girl playing sharpshooter off the back of my fucking bike. You have any idea how fast we were going? Like, scary fast. You would've splattered all over the road."

She huffs. "You pushed me."

"Well, yeah ," he says, annoyed. "After I pumped the brakes. Geez, Maka, I'm not stupid."

First thought, as she marches up to him, is to punch him straight in the jaw - he did push her off the bike, brakes or no brakes, and scared the everloving shit out of her. It's only fair. Except, the second she's toe to toe with him, her bravado flatlines.

Here he is, covered in cuts, bruises, and nasty road rash - clearly in some kind of pain - and he's letting her badger him around while he not so secretly checks her for any injuries. All eyes on her - her well-being, her feelings. Soul's never been good at hiding his overprotective side. Not much for giving a damn about himself, either. Would it kill him to be selfish for once?

Her eyes are on fire.

"Are you even listening? Maka?"

She hugs him. Maka Albarn, not one for being touchy-feely, is oddly comfortable with the idea of holding him and never letting go, lest he die on her. She can't watch any more blood spill because of her. Especially not his blood. She's gotten too attached to lose him now.

"Just… don't scare me like that."

Soul makes a noise in the back of his throat, and Maka is ready to let go like she burned him until he hugs her back.

"Sorry," he says. "I'll live. I promise. Road rash never killed anybody."

"Infection," she says, like picking an old scab.

"I like my chances."

Maka smiles. Despite everything that's happened lately, she might actually believe him. If they can survive two jacked-up Moto-Terminators riding their asses and firing plasma emitters their way, surely they can take on anything. The odds feel more in their favor for once.

He slowly breaks their embrace, clearing his throat. "Y'know the whole 'not dying' thing goes for you, too, right?"

"Yeah. I know."

Dying is not the plan. She still has a legacy to uphold, after all, tainted or not.

* * *

The long walk back to the apartment is quiet. No machines. Which is strange, considering all the commotion from their high-speed chase. They practically rang the dinner bell. Shouldn't there be machines in droves wandering around?

"You should really let me clean that up," she says, eyeing his shredded pant leg. The road rash looks red and angry mixed with bits of asphalt. "Don't want it to get infected."

Soul chuckles, baffling her. "Wow, at least invite me out to dinner first before you ask me to take my pants off. You move fast."

Her face is boiling red. " Not what I meant and you know it."

"Yeah, yeah." He opens the door for her, cocky smirk set, mocking her. "After you."

Maka bumps him on her way in. She marches up the stairwell to the second floor, inviting him, the jerkface, to eat her dust. As she rounds the corner, Maka doesn't expect to run into a beanpole - read: a thin human boy with jet black hair wearing a grimy dress shirt and slacks, skin paler than freshly fallen snow.

Ah, nice to know that she can still read her surroundings in a hurry. That skill hasn't rusted over from disuse.

Said beanpole catches her shoulders before she can lose her balance, surprising her. They make eye contact and she gets lost in his stare. His eyes are like polished gold coins. Take away the eyes, though, and he looks like the human incarnate of death.

She chokes up. "I, uh, sorry?"

"It's no problem at all," he says politely. "No harm done."

"Maka?"

When Soul's eyes land on the stranger - hands still lingering on her shoulders - his mind immediately draws the wrong conclusions. She isn't fast enough to stop him.

He slams the poor boy into the wall, his arm pressing hard against his collar bone. "Who the hell are you?"

"Soul, quit it!"

The boy winces. "Not… your enemy," he croaks. "I promise. Unhand me, please… I don't want to hurt you."

"That a threat?" Soul snarls, eyes dark and glaring. They remind her too much of the terminator's glowing red eyes back at the studio. Is this him being overprotective again, or something more, she wonders.

"I apologize in advance."

"What did you just say to me?"

In the blink of an eye, the boy - arguably made of nothing but skin and bone - uses Soul's strength against him, shoving his arm toward the wall, and knees him right in the gut. He drops Soul on the ground like a man twice his size, smoothly and elegantly. A gentlemanly takedown. Then he sighs and dusts off his wrinkled shirt.

"You motherfucker," Soul moans, curled in a fetal position on the ground. His bark has definitely lost its bite.

Not sure what to think, Maka reaches for her gun.

"Don't," the boy warns, revealing a pistol at his waist. "Like I said, I don't want to hurt anybody. Your friend here just couldn't take a hint."

Maka's hand stops. If he truly wanted to hurt them, wouldn't he have tried something when she ran into him? Not to mention his handling of Soul was hardly malicious. He didn't even use his gun. So, she nods, trusting him for now, and chooses to come to Soul's aid, instead. With his ego hanging by a delicate thread, her wounded guard dog shrugs her off and slowly rises to his feet.

"You are so dead."

However, before Soul can make another move, a bark sounds off down the hall, followed by the pitter-patter of doting Labrador paws. What happens next is something straight out of an old-world soap opera.

Dog performs a lethal fly-by, rushing to the boy's side instead of Soul's. Maka thinks she can hear the moment her death-defying partner's heart splits in two. The betrayal runs deep, especially when Dog turns on his best friend, barking in his face as if to say: back off.

Soul falls to his knees. "No… it can't be."

Maka is frozen where she stands, mouth gaping. Is he for real?

"Traitor," he mumbles, dejected, as the boy innocently scratches up and down Dog's sides.

"Um," Maka starts, a little bemused. This is not what she expected after just cheating death. "Would you like to come in?"

Soul groans his objection but Maka shushes him. Dog seems like a good judge of character, so she'll take his word for it. Her intuition agrees with him, anyway.

The boy smiles. "Yes, I'd like that."


	5. Chapter 5

The boy - who goes by Kid, which Soul scoffs at - sits at their coffee table like he's on trial. Legs crossed, arms placed neatly in his lap. As he prepares to plead his case, Dog plays the part of his attorney, looking far too comfortable at his feet.

Soul is still trying to recover from his so-called "faithful" Labrador's betrayal. He sits up on the bed, scowl etched in stone, even as she pokes and prods at his road rash through his shredded jeans. He refuses to show any weakness. She rolls her eyes. Men.

"How did you find us?"

"He led me here." Kid gestures to Dog, whose ears perk up. "I got separated from my group and panicked when I heard Moto-Terminators nearby. But then this dog runs out of nowhere and barks at me, so I follow him, and here I am."

As he speaks, there's something about his voice that sounds oddly familiar, but Maka can't quite put her finger on it.

Soul stands up, ignoring Maka's protests about his leg. "Where's your group now?"

"I don't know," he says, a little exasperated. The question must've struck a nerve. "A drone split us up about a day ago. I haven't seen or heard from them since."

"How do we know you're not lying?"

"Soul," she interrupts, "I think he's telling the truth."

"You don't know that," he says, shaking his head. He starts pacing the room. She can only imagine the way his leg must burn with each step - and he calls her stubborn. He should really look in the mirror once in a while.

"Why would I lie?"

The twinge in his voice is an echo of something she's heard before. It's like an itch she can't seem to scratch. Always there, messing with her head, wanting her to remember. Has she heard his voice before?

Soul crosses his arms. "How many people are in your group?"

Kid hesitates, eyes darting to the floor. "Three, including me."

"Only three of you?" Soul isn't convinced if the mock surprise on his face is any tell. "What a conveniently small group."

He's acting like the poor boy is lying to make his group sound weaker. Like they couldn't overwhelm her and Soul if a fight broke out. Not a bad strategy, she must admit, but she doesn't buy it. There's something honest about Kid - the boy practically radiates with a sense of civic duty. Not to mention his voice. Why does it sound so familiar?

"Really, Soul?"

"Yes, really, Maka. We can't just take his word for it. If he's lying and his group has numbers, we're fucked. Plus, what if he's running with the guy who shot me? Then we're extra fucked. This whole situation is just… fucked ."

"We lost people," Kid says solemnly. "Good people. We were surrounded with nowhere to go, and no one came for us. Nobody heard us." There's a heavy strain in his voice that rattles him, even as he tries to hide it. She watches his fists clench in his lap. "So yes, only three of us survived. Barely."

As she listens, really listens, reading his body language and piecing together his story in her head, something finally clicks. "You were the voice on the radio!"

The voice. The one that crackled over the old radio back at the bunker, begging for help from the resistance, and the recording that mocked her in the studio before she was attacked. That voice. It was Kid all along. She found him.

"You heard the broadcast?"

The stunned disbelief on his face catches her by surprise. She was riding the high of playing detective, solving the mystery of Kid's oddly familiar voice and scratching the itch, but that ship has sailed; no, it's crashed and burned. No matter how hard she tries to run away from the guilt, it always finds her.

This is her fault. Kid cried for help and no one answered because when push came to shove, Maka acted selfishly. She really wants to be the hero Soul claimed she is - brave, fearless... and so willing to sacrifice yourself for others, he said - but she's acting more like a villain. She certainly is one in Kid's story.

Is it possible that her destiny isn't to lead humanity to salvation, but to its destruction? Is this her father's past mistakes casting a shadow on her? Is this her true legacy?

"I'm so sorry," she says, unfiltered. Tears well up in her eyes. "I messed up."

"Maka?" Soul shoots her a worried look, but it isn't enough to stop her. She is too eager to confess. Everything.

Dog changes sides and starts pawing her knee, whimpering. Her hands grip the sheets at the edge of the bed.

"This is all my fault."

"I'm sorry," Kid interrupts. "I don't really follow. How did you hear the broadcast?"

Her words catch in her throat as her confession stalls.

Kid carries on, amber eyes burning a hole through her. "We were trying to reach the resistance. We knew they communicated by radio in the past-"

This is true, before they found Sid and the bunker, her, her father, Blake, and a small group spent a few months holed up in techie dream house. Nothing fancy, but the first-class radio station set up in the basement helped turn a grassroots resistance into a global movement against the machines. Driven by his worst mistake, her father crafted compelling messages that built the resistance she knows today. People tuned in from all over to listen to his resolve. To feel it, embody it. Use it to fight back. So it's no wonder why he was so desperate to resurrect the bunker's old military radio - he wanted to recapture his old, fighting spirit again.

"-and we were desperate. We even tried their old frequency. So… how did you intercept it?"

"I-I…" How does she come clean? She was ready to spill her guts a second ago, but now…

"Ok, that's enough. I'm the one asking the questions, not you, kiddo. " Soul steps between them, thinking he's coming to her rescue, but he's not. She's not worth saving. Besides, Kid isn't the only victim here.

Soul is the collateral damage of this confession. All because she refused to tell him the whole truth. Who she is, what she's done. Her comfortable, anonymous existence by his side is about to break - she can feel it in her bones. But the jig is up.

She tries to let it out quickly, all in one breath. "IwaswiththeresistancewhenIheardit."

"What?" they both say, Soul swiveling on his heel to face her as Kid watches her, eyes wide, and nearly springs out of his chair. Dog tilts his head at her.

"I'm a soldier for the resistance," she says, defeated. There isn't an ounce of pride left in her soul. Perhaps soldier is too strong of a word to describe her - try screw-up, failure, disappointment. "I was with them when they intercepted the broadcast."

"They heard us?"

"Whoa, time out," Soul speaks erratically with his hands, and she watches them keenly because anything is better than reading the shocked betrayal on his face. "This can't be right. You're saying that you've been resistance this whole time… and you didn't tell me?"

"Soul, I'm sorry. I was going to tell you-"

"But you didn't." His words cut her open like a knife. This reaction was inevitable - Maka doesn't deserve his forgiveness - but it hurts her far more than she's willing to admit.

His voice loses its serrated edge, but it still bleeds. "I told you everything. "

"I know, I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you…"

Soul tries to laugh it off. "Ohhhh. Because lying to me was for the 'greater good' or some shit, right?" He pauses to recenter himself, to shield his emotions with his cool guy facade. "Cut the crap, Maka. I think it's a little too late to play the 'hurt feelings' card, don't you?"

If by greater good, he means clinging to a version of herself with no blood on her hands or a foul legacy to live up to, than yes. Color her guilty on all charges.

"If the resistance heard us… why didn't you come?"

She blinks, refocusing her attention on Kid. His golden stare is unwavering. Maka feels like she's looking down the barrel of a gun with a shaky finger on the trigger.

"It was too late," she says, frowning. "By the time we received your message, the machines had already manipulated it to act as a lure. There were terminators waiting for us when we arrived." In a flash, she sees Blake firing wildly at the HK aerial unit, but she quickly blinks the memory away. "I'm sorry we didn't come for you sooner."

Since she could have, but Maka doesn't have the strength to drop any more truth bombs in this conversation.

"I suppose it's in the past now. At the very least, now I know I wasn't speaking to the void."

"Yes… the resistance heard you." She smiles weakly at him, her guilt fluttering like butterflies in her stomach. If only he knew how close the resistance came to saving his group, or that she ruined their chances of rescue. Would he still be this understanding?

"... how well do you know Spirit Albarn?" Kid asks, catching an unexpected second wind. He was just forced to relive the death of his friends. She can only imagine the pain he must feel, even as she struggles with her own ghosts. He knows loss, and it's fresh, so how did he recover so quickly? No one moves on from tragedy that fast. He went from angry and ridden with survivor's guilt to curious, bristling with a quiet excitement, in under a minute. What changed?

Soul scoffs from his spot against the wall. "You really think a soldier lackey like her has access to the top brass?"

The insult stings, and so does the distance he's now put between them, but she keeps her mouth shut. Soul is hurting because of her. Let him throw all the punches he wants.

"Spirit boasts about being a man of the people. I'm just working off the assumption that he likes to keep tabs on all his soldiers."

Oh, he has no idea. Granted, she's a special case.

Soul shrugs. "Sounds like bullshit to me."

She sighs. So much for no more truth bombs.

"I know him," she says, trying not to cringe. Her father is a sore subject on too many fronts. "Pretty well, actually."

Soul quirks a brow at her. "You're joking. Better yet, you're flat out lying. You're good at that."

"No…" This time she really wishes she was.

"How do you know him?" Kid butts in, on the edge of his seat. Dog mimics his excitement and starts wagging his tail.

"Errr, well, you see." She twiddles her thumbs in her lap, avoiding eye contact. "He's kind of my father."

"**What**."

Maka braces herself for impact. As in, the inevitable barrage of questions about to come her way regarding her complicated… parentage.

"You're Spirit Albarn's daughter?" Soul starts, eyes ready to bug out of his head.

As if keeping her ties to the resistance a secret wasn't bad enough, now she has the pleasure of being put side by side with her father. Humanity's "savior," "last hope," or whatever. More like a drunken womanizing buffoon who jump-started the very war he's sworn to end.

"Now this," Soul says, "is the fucking cherry on top."

She winces. The anger in his voice is a stab at her. Their bond is breaking, and she doesn't know if there's any way to fix it. She lied to him, and now she must live with the consequences. Even if it means losing him for good. Damn it, she really, really wishes she hadn't gotten so attached.

"This… this is perfect," Kid says, and the pity party between her and Soul promptly ends as they both look at him like he's earned a spot in the looney bin (if one still exists).

"Excuse me?" she tries, looking sheepish. How is anything about this situation perfect?

Kid stands at attention, and from the corner of her eye, she sees Soul reach for the gun tucked in his waistband. There's still no trust between them. She also suspects that Soul still holds a grudge over what happened in the hallway earlier.

"Relax, I'm a friend. Haven't I proven that already?"

"You haven't proven anything, kiddo."

Kid rolls his eyes before focusing them on her. "I have information for your father. It's of utmost importance."

Maka blinks back her surprise. "What kind of information?"

"I can't say. It's… classified."

"Well, aren't you just full of shit," Soul says, unamused. "You two are perfect for each other."

She tries to pretend like Soul didn't just say that, and presses on. "It does sound a little suspicious."

"I promise you, Maka, I'm telling the truth. The intel I have can end this war… destroy Skynet. You just need to help me reach the resistance."

Her inner-hero tingles a bit. "How? I'm sorry, but you need to give me more than just 'classified'. I can't just take your word for it. Not with this." She watches him waver, and tacks on, "Tell me how your intel wins this war. I won't risk my friend's lives on a hunch. I'm sure you understand."

Tugging on Kid's heartstrings - read: toying with his latest trauma - is a twisted game, but it does the trick.

"I… I'll spare you the details," he says, a little nervous. His palms look sweaty. "But I will say this. The location of Skynet's mainframe computer - its beating heart - isn't unknown to us anymore."

Maka's eyes grow wide. "You found it?"

"I've got the coordinates right here." He taps his temple. "And I'll only give them to your father. Please, will you take me to him? To stop this… all of this. So their deaths can mean something." He's talking about the people he lost - did they risk their lives for him so he could pass this intel along to the resistance? She assumes so.

Maka has spent the last few weeks avoiding the resistance, avoiding her murky inheritance and her costly mistakes. She was more than ready to waste away and drown in her own guilt. Though returning home was always on the backburner - she knew she couldn't hide forever - but a part of her genuinely considered staying with Soul; cutting ties with the resistance and moving on, living anonymously.

But how can she run away now? She's always dreamed of leading humanity to victory over Skynet, and here Kid is, handing her the keys to that dream. This may be her only shot at redemption.

She looks to Soul, as if asking for consent, reassurance, anything. Can she do this? Can she lead Kid out of the city to the bunker? She wants him to tell her that she can. Tell her that she's not a screw-up or a failure or a disappointment.

Soul holds her stare for a second before he looks away.

Maka visibly deflates. Right. She doesn't have his support anymore, not after breaking his trust. She has to decide this on her own.

"Maka Albarn, daughter of the resistance… won't you help me?"

Maka takes a deep breath. He just had to bring her legacy into question, didn't he?

Gathering her wits, she stands up to face Kid, and all her past demons, for that matter. She can't run away from the past anymore. It's time to be brave.

"Yes," she says, quietly, before finding the resolve in her voice. "I'll take you to the resistance."

* * *

They settle on leaving in the morning. This gives them time to plan, pack, rest, and, in Kid's case, wash up. He nearly broke down in tears when she showed him the working shower upstairs, saying something about finally feeling human again. It's been years since she was cut off from running water, but she understands. Wearing a layer of your own sweat, blood and grime like a second skin for weeks at a time is dehumanizing. And for Kid it smelled like months.

So, while he cleans up, Maka figures its time to see where she stands with Soul. He is eerily quiet, tip-toeing around her without sparing her a glance, but she knows he's on the brink of self-destructing. He isn't finished with her. There's more he wants to say, and she owes him some kind of closure. Because if this truly is their last night together, she can't leave knowing he hates her. Their friendship can't end like this. She won't let it.

Soul sits at the coffee table with his back turned to her, his rage palpable with each spoonful of Spaghettios he shovels into his mouth. Even Dog keeps his distance, choosing to sit with her on the bed instead of by his side. He usually waits his turn to lick the can when Soul is done. But it looks like they're both in the same boat: at the top of Soul's shit list.

Maka coughs into her fist. "Uh, can we talk?"

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Soul."

He drops his spoon in the can. "Is everything you told me a lie?"

"No." This she is adamant about. Their friendship is anything but a lie. "I didn't lie to you, Soul. I just kept some of the truth to myself… which was wrong, I know, and I'm sorry."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Hidden in his question she hears his heartbreak over telling her about his amnesia, only for her not to return the favor. She should've told him that night, but she was too caught up in the fantasy of being nobody. Living anonymously by his side with no pressure to live up to expectations. Only, she fell far short of Soul's - and his mattered too.

Her shame crawls up her throat. "I didn't want to be Spirit Albarn's daughter anymore, okay? The so-called 'daughter of the resistance' made a mistake and people died. A friend I loved like a brother is probably dead because of me." Admitting Blake is gone almost breaks her, but she doesn't stop. She needs to keep going. "With you, I got the chance to be somebody else, and I didn't want that to end. But I should've told you. I'm sorry."

Soul finally looks at her, and there is pity in his eyes. He feels for her, she knows he does. He cares too much not to, regardless of the tension between them. Maybe, just maybe, their friendship isn't lost after all.

"Was your story true?"

"What?"

He leans forward in his seat. "About Judgement Day. Did you tell me the truth?"

If Maka thought this conversation was going in a positive direction, this is the moment where it flatlines. He had to pick the one story with her father in it, the only one she told him, to test her honesty. She didn't tell the whole truth for a reason, but he can't know why. No one can. She promised to take her father's secret to the grave. The resistance would fall apart if word got out he helped launch Skynet. But if she admits that she lied, she might lose Soul.

No matter how Maka answers, she loses.

"Well?"

She bites her lip and considers defending the lie. Only, if he's asking the question to begin with, she has to assume it comes from a place of doubt - he knows she probably lied, so now he wants to see if she'll do it again. Clever, but she has no intention of hurting him any more than she already has. Soul deserves at least some variation of the truth. Even if it costs her their friendship.

"No… I didn't," she admits, airing out her dirty laundry. She waits anxiously for his response.

Soul smiles, which strikes her as odd, until she sees how hurt he is - this is the smile of a man who feels utterly defeated. His eyes are cold and distant, lost in a haze. He taps one finger on the armchair while the others dig into the wood in an ironclad grip.

"I'm sorry." His silence is killing her. "When you asked me about Judgment Day, I panicked. I wasn't ready to share the truth about my father, but I should have. Especially since… you know."

Maka isn't ready when Soul finally explodes. He bursts out of his chair, knocking it to the ground, and digs the chain out of his pocket - the object of his confession, engraved to a name he clings to as his own. He dangles it in front of her face, taunting her. Letting her feel that " you know " down to her core. All to remind Maka of her true colors: that when he shared his greatest insecurity with her, she greedily kept her secrets to herself.

"This," he shakes the chain, "is all I have left of who I was. A link to a past I might never get back. And you just… spit on it, like it's nothing. Like telling you was easy."

Her eyes brim with tears. "That's not true…"

"I… I can't do this right now." Soul drops the chain in her lap and turns away, decidedly done with her. He makes a beeline for the nearest exit.

"Soul." He ignores her. " Soul. " He opens the door. "Soul, where are you going?"

"Well, you and boy wonder are going to need supplies. Last I checked we lost our basket of goodies when those Moto-Terminators showed up. So, here I am, making myself useful for the 'cause'. You can thank me later."

She starts to shimmy off the bed. "Wait, you'll need back up. I'll come with you-"

"I'm good riding solo, thanks," he says, already halfway out the door. "You should stay here and keep an eye on the kid." And stay away from me, she reads between the lines.

"You can't go out there alone! What about your leg? You're hurt. You can't outrun any machine like this."

"I'll take my chances." And with that, he walks out on her, in more ways than one.

She sighs in defeat and thumbs the ring in her lap. Why can't she do anything right?

Dog rests his head on her knee and echoes her sigh. His marble eyes swivel up to meet hers, all brown and watery. He whimpers softly, clearly upset that his best friend left him behind. Maka wipes the tears from her eyes and scratches behind his ear.

"Looks like we both messed up, huh?"

Dog crawls further into her lap. She welcomes him by wrapping her arms around his neck. Curled in her fist, the chain seems to burn with a painful truth: now she is the villain in not one story, but two.

* * *

When Kid walks in the room an hour later, all freshened up in a clean dress shirt, jeans, and a white jacket, Maka is still wallowing in her own self-pity and cuddling with Dog. She unconsciously rolls the ring between her fingers, lost in thought. Too heartbroken and proud to admit her hurt feelings over Soul.

"Feel better?" she asks, numbly.

"Yes, thank you." He straightens his jacket. "I haven't felt this clean in a long time."

"Good. I'm glad."

He raises a brow at her. "Is something wrong?"

"I don't know," she answers callously, letting her frustration take a crack at him. Screw being polite; she is sad, damn it. "Does it look like something's wrong?"

"Well, you are cradling that dog like it's a small child," he says as he picks up Soul's discarded chair. He dusts off the seat and sits down to face her, brows furrowed. "Though I can't tell if you're comforting him or if he's comforting you."

As if knows he's being talked about, Dog springs up and licks Maka's chin. She smiles weakly and scratches his belly when he flops back down on the bed. The way he wags his tail while upside down is precious. So yeah, maybe he is comforting her, but at least it's working.

"Is this… a lover's quarrel?"

Her cheeks grow hot. "Pfft, what? No… Soul and I are just friends."

"I'm sorry, I just assumed…"

"You assumed wrong," she huffs.

Does her relationship with Soul really come across as romantic? It's not like they're fawning all over each other like Blake and Tsubaki, making heart eyes, calling each other stupid pet names, and sneaking off to do… things. She and Soul just click. He has her back and she has his. She can read him (sometimes) and he can read her (easy, since she wears her emotions on her sleeve). They tease each other, pick stupid fights, but if things go too far they always say sorry; staying mad is not cool, Soul says. Oh, the irony.

Yes, she has her sparks - Soul is attractive and sweet when you look past his rough edges - but their relationship is purely platonic. Just friends. Partners. The "L" word has no business between them. Only, the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes their relationship walks a fine line between close friends and lovers. Shit, is she falling for him?

The thought of losing him today did put the fear of God in her…

"For what it's worth, I think he'll come around."

Maka stops mid-belly scratch. "You think so?"

Kid nods. "He cares an awful lot about you. He would've killed me if it meant protecting you - I could see it in his eyes." Soul did have murder in his eyes when he pinned Kid against the wall. "I don't think this is enough to scare him away. He's… for the lack of a better word, pretty smitten with you."

"Pick a better word," she deadpans, trying not to blush.

"Err, he cares too much to let you go like this. Give him time."

Well, it's not like she has all the time in the world to kiss and make up (just a figure of speech, nothing more). She leaves tomorrow. The world she's known for the past month is about to end. Will Soul even see her off?

"Thanks for the advice," she says, offering him a small smile. "You're pretty good at this."

He shrugs. "My sister's love life provided me with every dating scenario known to man. You could say I'm an expert on 'boy problems'."

"You have a sister?" Maka ignores the implications of love life and boy problems and jumps headfirst into learning more about Kid's past.

"Yes… I used to," he answers quietly. "Two sisters. Adopted, but that never mattered." His eyes lose their golden shine, as if they've been possessed by loss.

Maka quickly backpedals. "It's okay. We don't have to talk about them if you don't want to."

"Thank you." He smiles weakly. "They say grief lessens with time, but I'm not so sure."

"Yeah..."

For a moment, she thinks of the day her mother left. Never to be seen again, only to be heard from in cheap postcards. Maka can't exactly write her mother off as dead - she may very well still be alive - but she feels gone. Completely erased from Maka's history. She wishes her own grief had eroded with time, but Kid's point rings true. It still hurts. It will always hurt.

Blake tries to weasel his way into her thoughts, but she doesn't let him. Not yet. The memory is still too fresh.

Attuned to the tension in their conversation, Dog nudges her hand and asks for more belly scratches. She happily obliges.

"We should discuss our plans for tomorrow." His subject change is direly needed, as his change in tone. Any mention of his mission seems to put a little pep in his step. "There's something I need to do before we leave for the resistance."

Now, this piques her interest. What is important enough to delay his mission?

"I'm listening."

"The rest of my group," he says, surprising her. "I won't leave without them."

Ah, she almost forgot about Kid's conveniently small group - as Soul so elegantly put it - of survivors. Only two, if her memory serves her right. Helping him find his friends is the least she can do at this point. She is the reason why they're considered survivors in the first place.

"Of course. I'll help you find them." She quickly finds that reverting back to her past self - the mission-oriented Maka who relied heavily on tactical instincts and guts - is far easier than she expected. She slips into intelligence-gathering mode in a pinch. "What do they look like? Their names? When's the last time you saw them? And where?"

Kid looks taken aback by her onslaught of questions but takes them in stride, not sparing any details. "Clay and Akane. Both fit and thin, maybe 6'2. Clay has short blond hair and blue eyes, and Akane has dark hair, long in the front that covers part of his face, and blue eyes. Last I saw them, it was yesterday morning - we were holed up in a 50's-styled diner when a drone appeared and split us up. They ran out the back, and I out the front."

"Blond hair and blue eyes, huh." What are the odds that the boy she saw in the alley could be Clay? He certainly fits Kid's description. "How far would you say the diner was from where Dog found you?"

"Four blocks at most. Why?"

Maka hops off the bed, leaving a disgruntled Dog in her wake, as she grabs some pens and notepads from the dresser drawer. The old flask of vodka stares at her accusingly, reminding her of Soul; the sanitized needle and dental floss sitting next to it don't help, either. She quickly slams the drawer shut before any conflicted feelings can take her hostage.

If Maka truly wants to redeem herself, she must stay focused on the mission. Soul needs to take a back seat in her mind - he matters, but the mission needs to matter more. For now, at least.

She returns to the bed and drops her findings. "I think I might know where to look first. Can you draw what you remember from that area?"

When Kid doesn't answer, she is surprised to find him playing with the chain, studying the ring between his fingers. He must be reading the engraving. Shit.

"This belongs to Soul?"

Maka snatches the chain out of his hands and, in the spur of the moment, puts it on, clasping it behind her neck. It tucks into her shirt collar, out of sight, out of mind. "Doesn't matter. Did you hear anything I just said?"

Kid nods and grabs a pen. "My memory is a little spotty - I was on the run - but I think I can remember the gist of it." He pushes the other pen toward her. "You should try mapping your way out to the desert. We need as many escape routes as possible if we're going to make it out of death city alive."

Death City. It never really had a name until now - it's old name faded away like the old world - but this new one fits like a glove. A ravaged desert city infested with machines. A lot of blood has spilled here, like her own, and the blood of the people she lost that stains her hands. It really is a city ridden with death.

"Right." The hours she spent studying those old maps in the bunker will finally serve a higher purpose. "Let's get started."

It's going to be a long night.

* * *

Maka wakes up the next morning to the sound of something heavy falling on the bed next to her feet. She slowly sits up on her elbows, having fallen asleep on her stomach, and rubs the sleep from her eyes. Her poorly drawn - but accurate - map is stained partially with drool, making her cringe. She quickly wipes her chin to destroy the evidence. Last thing she needs is Soul to-

Soul.

Her morning grogginess nearly wiped her slate clean of her confession, of all the tension and heartbreak that followed, but the fog is beginning to lift. She imagined Soul teasing her about drooling in her sleep like Dog, but then the memory of him walking out on her shatters that illusion. He is gone. He won't be here to tease her, let alone acknowledge her. Not with their friendship in shambles.

She subconsciously feels for the ring underneath her shirt. Then, another thump, this time on the floor, catches her off guard, as does the following groan. When Maka finally snaps out of her morning haze, she is surprised to see Soul standing over Kid, stone-faced, but underneath it all... smug?

She blinks. Once. Twice. This isn't a hallucination. Soul is really there, in the flesh, all suited up in his leather jacket and unshredded jeans. He doesn't seem hurt, either - even with his road rash, he isn't favoring one leg over the other. His body is intact, unscathed, but she guesses that his mind is still carrying the heavy weight of her confession. How he survived a night alone in Death City with her secrets eating away at him, she'll never know.

Maka breathes a sigh of relief. He is alive, she tells herself. He isn't dead because of her. Not yet, at least.

"Rise and shine, kiddo," Soul sing-songs. "This is your eviction notice speaking."

"What the hell," Kid wheezes, hugging a heavy pack to his chest. So that's what dropped on the floor - err, on him. "Is this your idea of a friendly wake-up call?"

"Nope, not really." Soul sounds better than the last time she saw him. Except she knows he's using his cool guy facade to hide the truth. It's all an act, which means he shoved his emotions deep down within himself where they can't hurt him - that's what she would do, what she is doing (trying to, at least). "I'd say we're even now."

"Are you seriously still bitter about what happened yesterday in the hall?"

Soul shrugs. "Like I said, we're even."

"Soul?" His body recoils at the sound of her voice. "You're…" Alive, looking good, here to say goodbye, to tell her to fuck off, all of the above? Her eyes gravitate to his back. "... carrying a pack?"

Soul stays quiet, avoiding her blank stare. He told her last night he was gathering supplies for her and Kid's trek back to the resistance. Now there are three packs - one dropped on Kid, another on Soul's back, and the third sitting by her feet - which could only mean one thing…

"You're coming with us," Kid says matter-of-factly. He offers Maka a half-smile, as if to say I told you so, and rises to his feet. Impulsively, he brushes the wrinkles out of his shirt before adjusting the pack on his shoulders. "I knew you couldn't stay away."

"Yeah, yeah," Soul says, annoyed. "I'll help you get out of this hellhole, but that's it. I'm not interested in joining up with the resistance."

At his rejection, her mouth falls into a frown. At the very least, she now has more time to make things right between them.

"Thank you, Soul."

Soul doesn't reply, only nods affirmatively. His demeanor toward her is drone-like, strictly professional. The man who saved her, risked his life for her, teased her, offered her warm and gooey smiles - that Soul is gone. It takes all her strength to wear a straight face when on the inside she is falling apart.

"Let's be ready to leave in an hour." Maka rolls off the bed and grabs her pack, stirring the sleeping canine next to her awake. "I think that gives us enough time to prepare. We'll look for your friends first," she says, addressing Kid. "Then we'll make our way to the resistance."

"Sounds like a plan," Kid replies, squaring his shoulders. He is practically glowing with righteousness. His moral compass walks a straight line - not much room for grey area, if she had to guess. Nonetheless, the thought of seeing his friends again and fulfilling his duty does seem to brighten his spirits. "I'll organize everything we came up with last night."

"Good, we'll need it."

As Kid starts to sort through all their work on the bed, Maka's eyes shift to Soul.

With no choice, Soul finally acknowledges her, his eyes betraying his cool facade - he is conflicted, suffering a silent pain he refuses to share, all because of her. How can she fix this?

"Copy that."

Maka can only hope she hasn't pushed him away for good.


	6. Chapter 6

"Are you sure this is where you saw what's-his-face?" Soul asks, feigning boredom, when in reality she knows he's on edge about revisiting the spot where the Moto-Terminators found them yesterday. His body language screams uncomfortable, ready for fight or flight at a moment's notice, while his mouth tries to deflect by downplaying the situation with snarky comments.

The way his fingers tap-dance nervously in his pockets give him away. It's his tell. There might be some dissonance between them, but Maka can still read him.

"Yes," she says, her annoyance spilling from her lips. She knows why he is deflecting and being difficult - their partnership is on the fritz, she gets it - but that doesn't mean his childish nitpicking isn't testing her patience. "I'm sure. He was standing right here."

"Not anymore."

Her lips slip into a scowl. Thank you, captain obvious.

Meanwhile, Dog sniffs up and down the alley, occasionally getting distracted by spoiled garbage or wayward smells that hardly tickle her nose. He works in circles, never staying on a straight path, that has him retracing his steps constantly. Every few steps, he lifts his leg, which elicits a small groan from her. If there is a trail to pick up, Dog seems oblivious to it.

Kid keeps trying to offer Dog a necktie he says belonged to Akane, but the engrossed canine seems to ignore him in favor of more interesting, pee-inducing smells.

Maka hides her face in her hands. Why must things never go as planned?

Soul does an awful job of hiding his grin at Dog's aimless wandering, but his words are still sharp and accusing. "How do you even know it was him?"

"Call it a hunch," she says dismissively. She faintly remembers her father using the same words on her, but that feels like a lifetime ago. The search and rescue mission, her bunker arrest, the broadcast, her and Blake sneaking into the city - it all feels obscure now, out of reach, only there to rouse her guilt when called upon.

In a moment of weakness, she wonders how her father has coped with her disappearance… and what she comes up with is simple: not well.

"So you don't know. Perfect." He sighs dramatically. "I mean, of course you don't… this is all just another lie you can't fess up to."

At the end of her rope, Maka snaps. "Think what you want about me - hate me, don't trust me, I don't care!" Only she does, she really does. "But I know what I saw, so quit your whining and make yourself useful." Her eyes narrow at him as she spits, "If not for me, do it for the 'greater good.'"

Soul is stunned into silence. His eyes widen at her outburst - does she detect an inkling of guilt swirling in those red irises? - but it only lasts a second. His mask of indifference falls neatly back into place. Though his lips stay locked, his body language keeps talking, echoing his uneasiness.

"Hey, what are you - No! Bad dog! "

Her standoff with Soul breaks apart to the sound of Dog wrestling with Kid, full of mock growls and excited yips. He tears something out of Kid's grasp - the tie, she realizes - and runs away with it, bounding down the alley like a deer. He stops at the alley's mouth and turns around to stare them down. He wags his tail smugly. Then he barks, as if asking them to follow, before leaping out of their sight.

They all look at each other, words lost between them, before racing down the alley to follow their runaway retriever.

"Your dog could really use some obedience training!" Kid shouts between hurried breaths.

"Hey, don't talk shit about Dog!" Soul counters. "He listens to me! He's a good boy!"

"Yes, well, I don't see your good boy listening to his master now!"

"Grrr, DOG!"

His good boy doesn't listen.

* * *

They follow Dog for six blocks, weaving in and out of alleyways and broken down storefronts. The varied backdrops appear in flashes as Dog leads them on a wild goose chase of sorts - she vaguely remembers hurdling over a jewelry counter, Soul nearly wiping out jump-sliding over the hood of a junker car, and Kid knocking over and shattering an old gumball machine in a looted convenience store.

When Dog finally puts his paws on the brakes, Maka is completely out of breath; her lungs are gasping for air, ballooning rapidly and burning. Kid is leaning over, hands on his knees, trying to steady his breathing, but he is gulping for air just like her.

Soul's breathing, on the other hand, seems strangely unaffected by their mad dash. He grabs Dog from behind, startling the hasty pooch, and tries (and fails) to reprimand him.

"Don't run away like that, boy," he says, cooing in his ear. " Not cool."

Dog whines, pawing at Soul's shins. His tail wags anxiously, which is odd - Dog is rarely this worked up. He drops the tie on the floor as if to punctuate some kind of invisible point none of them are grasping.

Soul furrows his brows at the fussy canine. "What is it, boy?"

"...K-Kid?"

After all that running around, Maka failed to evaluate her current surroundings. Even now she can hear Sid lecturing her in her head: always be aware of your surroundings, take inventory, find your exits, know when you're alone and when you're not. Well, needless to say, she has failed miserably on all counts. But, to humor her army man's teachings, she can say with certainty now that they're inside a department store surrounded by disheveled clothing racks.

A boy - Akane, she guesses, by the way his bangs cover his face - creeps out slowly from behind a spinning rack of sweaters, eyes flinching between her and Soul before focusing on Kid. At first glance, Maka finds it odd how tightly he closes his jacket across his chest. It's awfully big around his middle. He might've filled it out in another life, but not anymore. His slacks are torn at the knees and soiled by dirt. His glasses have a broken lens. Past this, his eye - the one she can see - a dark, murky blue, is filled with a quiet agony.

Something about this meeting feels… off.

Kid rushes to his side, catching him as he collapses. "Akane, it's me. I'm here. Are you alright?"

"I've seen better days," he says, wheezing.

Kid whips his head side to side, searching. "Where's Clay?"

Maka pulls her gun out of her holster, watching Soul as he does the same. Good, so they're on the same page. Something is undoubtedly wrong here.

Akane's sad smile makes her gut clench. "Dead. Gunned down trying to push me out of the way. My best friend..." He chuckles weakly, no, cynically, as he opens his jacket. "But he wasn't fast enough." His undershirt is soaked red around his stomach.

"No no no." Kid's eyes are wide with panic as he presses his hand against Akane's stomach in vain - it's too late, he's lost too much blood. His face is drained of all color, pinched in pain. He is too far gone to save now.

"Kid, listen, you don't have much time," he says, trying to muster the last of his strength. "They're coming. You need to get out of here before they catch you, or it's all over."

"You need to stay with me, Akane. Do you hear me? I can't lose everyone."

Kid is too lost in shock to grasp what Akane is saying, but Maka knows. He is blind in his grief but she can see for him. In her head, she can feel a gust of wind push against her sails - they need to leave, now .

To amplify the tension in the air even further, Dog paces at their feet, his cries increasing in volume. He tries pulling Soul away by the cuff of his jeans but gets shaken off.

"Easy, boy," Soul says, reaching down to offer him a reassuring pat on the head.

Dog shuffles out of his grasp and cries with more urgency. His eyes are pleading for them to leave. The last time she saw him this worked up was yesterday, just before the Moto-Terminators made their entrance. Perhaps their four-legged friend has a sixth sense about incoming machines.

Maka's skin prickles at the thought. She does feel like they're being watched, red eyes targeting them, waiting. Her empty hand instinctively reaches for the ring under her shirt.

Soul must have the same feeling, because he breaks off from the group and begins walking the perimeter. He holds his gun out in front of him, finger kissing the trigger. Dog follows closely on his heels. Even from across the room, she can see a bead of sweat trickle down his temple.

"I'm sorry. I really am." Akane tries standing on his own, using a nearby clothing rack for support. It rattles in his grip. "But you need to leave me behind. Go, before they find you here."

Kid shakes his head slowly in a trance-like state. "No. I won't leave you behind."

"Y-You don't have a choice."

Maka reaches out to grasp Kid's shoulder, tugging on him to face her. "Akane is right. I know this is the last thing you want to do." She can see the ghosts of those he lost glaze over his golden eyes. "Kid, you can't save him. But you can help the resistance save everyone else with what you know. Please… we need to go."

At first, Maka can't tell if she's reached him or not. Her eyes drift to Soul, who nervously stalks toward a dressing room curtain. Dog growls as they get closer, unnerving her. Time is running out. They needed to be gone the moment they arrived.

"Akane," Kid says abruptly, voice tense. He holds out a shaky hand. "It's been an honor serving with you... and Clay."

Akane takes Kid's hand, smiling through the pain. "Likewise. Now, off with you. Go save the world. I'll see you in the next life."

As Maka pulls Kid away, she silently prays they don't see him again in the near future.

A deep, distorted grunt roars across the room, catching them all off guard. From the corner of her eye, she spots a terminator - a carbon copy of the metal man that nearly killed her in the studio - wrestling to disarm Soul by the dressing room. Dog attacks its calf with an animosity she never knew he had. It all happens so fast, Maka almost misses the machine gun in its grip, waving wildly in the direction of her and Kid.

Her eyes widen. So does Soul's.

"Get down!"

She pushes Kid to the floor in one fluid motion. Bullets start flying, exploding old, musty clothes into tattered pieces around the room. Her hands press harshly against her ears. No matter how many times she's been shot at lately, she'll never get used to ear-piercing sound.

Kid struggles against her. "Akane, no!"

Maka looks up just in time to watch a stream of lead pass straight through Akane's body - his thigh, his arm, his chest, and even one through his jaw. A splash of red sprays in the air. His body spins from the impact, as if he's in slow motion, before landing on the ground, motionless. She quickly turns away from the scene, dragging Kid with her, to avoid his lifeless stare. She doesn't want to be haunted by another ghost.

Suddenly, one shot rings louder than the rest, silencing the others. Maka is certain she has whiplash as she pivots her head toward the dressing room, watching Soul as he slowly lowers his gun. The terminator falls with a heavy clang. A hole is burned through its temple.

"Piece of shit," he grumbles, kicking the gun out of its hand. From his side, Dog chuffs, as if to say good riddance.

"Soul, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he answers gruffly. "This hunk of junk couldn't fight its way out of a paper bag."

Maka blinks, taken aback. In these moments, where Soul feigns childish bravado, he kind of reminds her of Blake. She smiles, ignoring the pain it sparks. Better to think of this fondly than to succumb to grief.

"Did you get hit?"

She stands up and holsters her gun. "No, we're both fine."

Soul sighs in relief, kindling some hope inside her. He does still care, whether he means to show it or not. He hasn't completely abandoned her.

"No… no, no, no." Kid scrambles to his feet and rushes to Akane, tears in his eyes. "Akane, I'm sorry, so sorry."

"Hey, uh, Kid," Soul says tentatively as he and Dog rejoin their group. "I get that he's your friend, and this is all fucked up, but we have to go. I don't think we're machine free just yet."

Kid stays deathly still, staring intently at his friend's corpse.

She decides to put her hat in the ring. "Kid?"

Kid springs to his feet, walking briskly past them to the nearest exit. He remains eerily silent. His movements are rigid, forced, as he struggles to keep his emotions in check. The mission demands that he stay emotionally un compromised - a feat she could never manage. How Kid moves on from all the death that follows him, she'll never know.

"Look, Kid, I -"

Maka elbows Soul before he can try to sneak a word in, earning her a disgruntled look. She figures the poor guy could use a moment of silence - Akane, too. He doesn't need anybody's sympathy or a comment that says "you couldn't have saved him" right now.

"This way," Kid says monotonously, without sparing either of them a glance. He opens a door, labeled blatantly by an emergency exit sign, and steps out into another beaten alley. Then he disappears from her sight, which must be their cue to follow. Dog makes the first move.

"You think he'll bounce back?" Soul asks, catching her by surprise. Their trust feud must have taken a backseat in the thick of all the action. The shock will eventually wear off, though, and he'll go back to wearing his "cool-but-hurt guy" mask. But Maka really hopes she's wrong.

"I don't know, but we should keep an eye on him. Grief leads to reckless behavior."

She should know. The daughter of the resistance is the poster child for lashing out when she's upset.

"Copy that."

Ah, back to his aloof self. Wonderful.

Maka brushes past Soul to join Kid outside, a little peeved by his attitude shift. A lot peeved, actually. She felt so close to receiving his forgiveness. So close. Except he keeps pulling away at the last second, showing a glimpse of emotion to give her hope - worrying about her, having her back, giving her looks that prove they're still in sync - just to put up his guard again.

Will he ever give her a second chance?

As Maka steps outside, she squints at the sunlight, a harsh jump from the dim lighting inside the department store. It takes longer for her surroundings to come into focus. When they do, she is blindsided.

"Lookie here. It's kickass Barbie… without the rack."

Before Maka can react, thick, burly arms wrap around her middle, pulling her into the worst kind of bear hug - the kind that nearly squeezes you in half until you burst. Her breath catches in her chest, not even her throat. She kicks at the big man's shins but he doesn't budge.

Kid appears in her peripheral vision on his knees with a gun to his head. Dog curls into his lap, baring his teeth. "Maka, I'm sorry, I didn't see them."

"It's… o… kay."

"Let her breathe," says a voice, dripping with arrogance. "Before you pop her like a fucking balloon… which is cool and all, but we don't need to get messy. Not yet."

Suddenly, Maka can breathe again. She greedily sucks in all the air she can. Then, fueled by anger, she starts thrashing about to escape. Her captor acts unphased. To someone like him, she must be like a fly - easy for him to squash.

"Maka!"

Soul bolts out the door, his eyes wild with blind rage, only to get socked in the face by the arrogant bastard's rifle. He lands ungracefully on his back, nose spurting blood. A sharp groan escapes his lips. At the very least, he managed to stay conscious.

"And this must be Ken. How adorable. This really tickles my balls."

Arrogant bastard has dirty blonde hair, a crusty chin beard, and a fuck-it-all smirk that sends a chill down her spine. Something about him screams unpredictable, dangerous. His sharp edges aren't just for show. In her quick threat evaluation, she notices a pistol is sticking out of his waistband in the front. Maka grins, despite everything. She would kill to see this douchebag shoot his own dick off.

Slap.

She spits blood on the pavement.

"Don't patronize me, bitch."

It takes all of Maka's willpower not to roll her eyes in his face.

"Don't… touch her."

He raises a brow, nudging Soul's face with his foot. "Look at you. Still shooting the shit. I'm impressed." He promptly kicks her partner hard in the gut a couple times, his boot toe digging in like a blade, and Soul coughs until he's gurgling - on blood, vomit, who knows. Either is enough to make her blood boil.

"We're not the enemy," Kid says, trying to level with him. He should know better - this guy has no "better nature" to appeal to. He's too chaotic to play politics.

"You're in our territory."

"Our mistake. Let us go, and we'll get out of your hair."

The man chuckles, setting her teeth on edge. "Trespassers need to pay a toll, smartass. It's pay to play around here. Pay up - as in give us allyour shit - and you can play, or get out of our hair, like you said. It's either that, or we shove lead up your ass. Your choice."

Maka scowls. "Is this how you survive? By threatening to kill people if they don't give you what you want… stealing from your fellow man, when the real enemy is the machines." Her fingers curl into fists. "You're the kind of scum Judgment Day should've purged."

"Oh, Barbie, that really hurts." He begins circling Soul, bored brown eyes sizing him up, searching as if there's something worth finding. "It's a dog-eat-dog world now. If you can't stomach the bad shit, then you die. It's nothing personal. Just business."

"We'll give you everything we have. Just let us go."

Maka balks. "Kid!"

She is not going to just roll over and let this man win. No way in hell. Only, Kid shoots her a look that gets his message across loud and clear: the mission matters more. His friend just died and he still has enough sense to see the bigger picture. If he wasn't so young, she'd say he was a soldier in his past life.

They can make it to the resistance with nothing but the shirts off their backs, right?

The scum of the earth hardly reacts to Kid's declaration, too focused on Soul to offer his customary smartmouthed reply. He kneels down and grabs Soul's chin, forcing him to look up. Her partner's red eyes are on fire. Soul is thinking beyond the statutes of murder, that's for sure. If only he wasn't so disoriented from taking those hits.

Suddenly, the wheels turning in the dirtbag's head finally click into place. "Well, fuck me sideways. My meds thief, in the flesh."

Maka feels her heart drop into her gut. This is the guy who shot Soul while she was lost in a fever dream? All his comments - trigger-happy bastard with a tacky nose ring and a foul mouth on him - make sense now. This man, in his cut-off tank top and bell-bottom jeans, is a textbook sociopath. He is the shoot first, ask questions later type. Anything could set him off. Only reason they're not dead yet is because he has something to gain from them, and now he's recognized Soul as the one that got away.

They're in trouble.

The unnamed shooter picks Soul up by his shirt collar, stretching it out to his shoulder. "He's even got my love bite."

"Leave him alone!" she shouts, squirming. This can't be happening. Why him, why now?

He looks over her head, tipping his chin to the guy holding her, grinning scandalously. "On second thought, these shitheads are coming with us. Got a bone to pick with this one." Soul drops on the ground with a heavy thud. "Among other things…"

Maka hates how his eyes fall on her, how they roam uncomfortably over her body, pausing in places that make her mentally slap him. She fidgets in his lackey's grip. There's no way his thoughts were clean as he checked her out.

Among other things, he said. She really hopes he doesn't mean what she thinks he does.

"We're about to visit your new dream house, Barbie. Buckle up."

A snide remark is on the tip of Maka's tongue, but he clocks her in the face before she can let it slip. Everything goes dark.

* * *

"Maka! Can you hear me?"

She groans, rolling her head between her shoulders as her eyes flutter open. Her head is throbbing to an awful beat, like an angry pulse. But she forces herself to see past the pain.

Always be aware of your surroundings, take inventory, find your exits, know when you're alone and when you're not.

Storage shelving units overshadow her, filled with an assortment of supplies - car parts, tools, ammunition, weapons, clothes, cans of food, cases of water, medicine - that look down at her tauntingly. A lightbulb hangs by a threaded wire in the middle of the room's ceiling. It creates a small circle of light, swinging back and forth like a pendulum. With each swing, the room reveals its size - they must be in a storage closet of some sort. There's only one way in and out.

The bulb swings some more, showing faces. Soul and Kid… they're alive!

"Maka?"

Soul reminds her of a wild animal caught in a trap, bloodied up, drained, but still wired to attack. She notices that his arms hang over his head, bound by handcuffs coiled around a pipe. His wrists are colored red and bruised. The dried blood on his face makes her cringe, because she knows he didn't take her getting knocked out lightly. No, he tried fighting back, as if he wasn't already beaten down, and look where it got them.

The light swings away and shrouds him in darkness again, but she could see the look in his eyes, the fear, mixed with a gentleness she swears he only shares with her.

Their fallout feels so trivial now. She wonders if he feels the same.

"I'm here," she says, biting back a wince. Her arms are pinned over her head, too. "Where are we?"

Kid speaks up. "Their hideout. I think… I think he called it your dream home?"

Sick, perverted bastard and his stupid Barbie jokes, she thinks bitterly.

Dog whimpers from his spot next Kid, pawing at the muzzle masking his face. He's wrapped up in a tight chokehold on a short chain. Hardly any room to breathe, let alone move. The blatant cruelty breaks her heart.

Without warning, a cloth dabs her swollen lip. Maka shrinks back immediately, shuffling her feet backwards to press her back against the shelves. A box of cans jostles just above her head.

"Easy, easy," comes a voice, shaky, but youthful. "Your lip is all bloody and puffy. Just trying to freshen you up a bit."

"Maka, meet Hiro," Kid says. "The more reasonable of our captors."

The light swings overhead, showing a boy - she guesses around high school age - with shaggy blond hair and flickering blue eyes.

"Yeah, a fucking pansy," Soul tacks on, snarling. "His master says jump, and he asks how high."

Hiro wipes the blood from her face tenderly, still shaken. "Y-You don't get it. You don't stand up to Giriko unless you want a bullet in your brain. He's coldblooded, sick… but he keeps his own alive. There's strength in numbers. If he didn't take me in, I'd be dead."

Giriko. At last, she knows the arrogant bastard's name. She is chomping at the bit to wipe that cocky smirk off his ugly mug - to make him think twice about underestimating her and calling her a Barbie doll. She'll show him to his dream house downstairs, in hell.

Soul shifts in his cuffs, glaring at Hiro through the light. "You're pathetic."

"I'm alive. Which is more than you can say, once Giriko has his fun with you."

"Hiro," she tries, adopting Kid's diplomatic strategy. "You don't have to do this. Let us go, and you can come with us to the resistance. I promise they'll take you in. They have strength in numbers, too. You can leave Giriko and be free of this fear."

Hiro pulls away from her, repulsed. Giriko's influence has taught him to look for ulterior motives, to always see the worst in people. Not to mention he doesn't have a brave bone in his body. This poor boy will choose Giriko out of fear, even if it means standing on the sidelines while innocent people are robbed and killed. He carries the weight of their blood on his hands whether he wants to or not.

Kid was wrong. Hiro isn't the most "reasonable" of their captors, he's just a gutless coward.

"I don't believe you."

Maka is quick to let him know he made the wrong choice. "You should."

As if on cue, the door swings open and in walks the scumbag himself, tacky nose ring glinting in the low light. This room isn't big enough to fit his overinflated ego or his shit-eating grin, but he finds a way to cram them both in. His glock remains enticingly in place as he struts up to her. She can't help but wish for it to go off on a whim.

Hiro recoils on instinct, pressing his back against the wall. He drops the rag and hides his hands. Maka rolls her eyes. Pansy.

"Feeling cozy in your new dream house, Barbie?" Giriko says, rubbing his jaw. Soul must've got a good lick in.

"Fuck you."

He smirks. "Oh, sweetheart. I'd have you screaming all night long."

Her face burns an angry crimson, mortified. Earlier he hinted beyond tormenting Soul as his eyes undressed her with a long, form fitting stare. From what she remembers from the alley, his group is composed of only men - she highly doubts he's capable of seeing any woman as his equal - so how does he perceive a woman like her? Among other things, he said. She shudders. He better keep his filthy hands to himself.

"Touch her, and you're dead, " Soul hisses, jerking against his cuffs.

Giriko whistles and walks up to Soul, swaying on his heavy boots. "Who shit in your cornflakes? Last I checked, you took a nasty dump in mine. Stealing antibiotics? Tsk, tsk. Ken's been a bad boy, huh Barbie?"

A scream catches in her throat as Giriko suddenly punches Soul in the face point-blank. Her partner's head snaps back on impact, before recovering slowly with a pained grimace, spitting a loogie of blood on the floor. He unclenches his jaw. His cheek is already beginning to swell with red."Ah, fuck!" Giriko stomps around in a circle, holding his hand. "Your face is a fucking brick. Fucking shit, that hurt!"

"Learn how to punch, dickhead," Soul says, sneering. Under his voice, she can hear Dog growling in the background.

"Is senseless violence really the answer?" Kid asks, breaking his silence. "We offered you everything we had. We paid our toll, so let us go. What could you possibly gain from keeping us here?"

Giriko shakes out his hand. "This isn't about some fucking toll anymore, half-pint. This is about teaching brick face here some respect . Hell, it's about justice. Don't you righteous dickbags get off on that sort of crap? "

"This is hardly justice. It's just cruel… and, in your case, a source of entertainment for someone sick in the head. A monster." Kid braces against his cuffs, his golden eyes cutting sharply through the spotty light. "Want to know what real justice is? It's winning this war. Saving what's left of humanity from Skynet. We don't have time for any of this… this… bullshit," he spits like venom off his tongue. "In the name of humanity's last hope of survival, I order you to free us. Now. Or we'll have no choice but to strike you down if you refuse to get out of our way."

Maka can feel Kid's heart and soul in his words, his will to fight, to save the people he still can , and his promise to those he lost that their sacrifice will not be in vain. His righteous fury should not be taken lightly. She only wishes they weren't so painfully compromised, otherwise they'd live up to his words. They're all weak, shackled, a far cry from breaking free and fighting their way out of here. They hardly fit the bill Kid has laid out so passionately to their enemy. Humanity's last hope of survival. Is that what they are now?

Is her legacy strong enough, or too ruined, cursed, to uphold his heavy words?

Giriko busts his gut laughing, tears prickling in his eyes. "Oh, kid. You are fucking hilarious, I swear!" He wipes away a stray tear with his finger, before quickly pulling out his gun and tucking it under Kid's chin. "Hate to break it to ya, preacher boy, but I'm judge, jury, and executioner around here. So tell me, who's striking down who?"

Faced with his own mortality, Kid's mouth runs dry. His classified intel must short circuit in his head as he contemplates his next move - bait the monster, or beg for his life. Maka struggles against her cuffs. She refuses to stand by and watch as Giriko torments her friend, the boy who promised her an end to this war. The boy who knows death as intimately as she does. She will not lose him. Not like this.

"Hey, I'm the one you want," Soul says, catching her off guard. She was on the verge of baiting him herself. "I stole your shit, not the kid. If hurting people really jerks you off, hurt me. Shoot me. It's not like you can miss me again. Or maybe you're just a horrible shot?"

"You little cocksucker." His gun slips out from under Kid's chin as he tucks it back into his jeans. "Shooting you is a mercy killing. No way in hell am I giving you the easy way out. You're gonna feel my wrath, shithead." He pulls a switchblade out of his pocket, flipping it open, marveling at its sharp edge. "Pissing your pants yet?"

"Not really, no," Soul taunts with false bravado. His Adam's apple bobs nervously. His fingers tap quietly against his cuffs.

Maka really, really wishes Soul had a shred of self-preservation tugging at his conscience. He's too ready to sacrifice himself, to die for her. Doesn't he realize that too many people have died for her already? Not to mention he is the last person she'd ever want to die for her. No, he needs to live for her instead, because carrying his blood on her hands would be too much. She can't stomach it.

Giriko kneels in front of him, tapping the blade against his shirt collar. "You're so full of shit. I'm about to carve you up, boy. You're gonna cry and piss your pants in front of your little slut over there. Got any last words?"

"I'm… I'm sorry."

"Oh, sorry isn't going to cut it, dickless," Giriko chuckles.

The apology isn't for him. It's for her. For everything. Her eyes start to water.

Giriko cuts open Soul's shirt, revealing a canvas of skin for him to carve up. Except something catches his eye and keeps him from going on a cutting spree. He isn't the only one struck dumb, either. Everyone's eyes are drawn to the long, crooked scar that splits Soul's torso in half from shoulder to hip. All jagged and stitched together like a scarecrow's mouth. Giriko looks at it like someone's marked his territory first, ruining his fun, while everyone else is left stunned, grasping for answers.

"Where the hell did this come from?"

Maka faintly remembers seeing this scar peeking out from under his shirt collar back when she was feverish, but she figured it was just the infection playing tricks on her. A fever dream. But it is undisputedly real now, and Soul kept it hidden from her, and for good reason - paired with his spotty memory, this raises a lot of red flags. Does he remember how he got it?

"Answer me, asshole. How'd you get it?"

Judging from the panic swirling in Soul's eyes, he doesn't know. Her heart breaks for him.

"Whatever. I'm still cutting you up."

The way Soul struggles not to scream and fails as Giriko draws his blade over his collarbone, kissing the edge of his scar, is enough to drive her mad. Her blood runs cold, like there's ice pouring in her veins, as his blood drips down his chest. He cries out in agony. All Maka can see is red now.

"Stop!" she yells, desperate. "Stop it, please! I'll do anything. Just don't hurt Soul!"

Against all odds, Giriko removes the blade from Soul's skin. "Anything, you say?"

Men, she thinks. Always thinking with the snake between their legs. Giriko is no exception.

"Maka, don't," Soul warns, but what he doesn't realize is that she's also the self-sacrificing type. She'll do anything to keep him alive. Even if it means giving herself up to Giriko.

Giriko quickly abandons Soul in favor of her, eyes full of lust. To him, she is nothing more than a sack of meat with girl parts. A toy to play with, to defile with his dirty hands. She tries to resist scowling in his face. He really is the scum Judgment Day should've purged.

"You gonna scream for me?" he asks, breath hot against her neck. Her body goes rigid. The first kiss burns her skin like a cattle brand iron. He's marking his territory now, putting on a show for Soul, who struggles wildly against his handcuffs.

"Get the fuck away from her!"

Giriko snickers. "You're just jealous 'cause I'm about to score while you were too chickenshit to make a move."

Soul thrashes harder, rattling the pipe. She's surprised he hasn't broken his wrists against the cold steel. Meanwhile, Dog starts barking at Giriko, baring his teeth. Kid is pale and keeps looking away. Like a bug on the wall, Hiro watches Giriko from the sidelines with an insatiable curiosity (the little bastard).

Maka feels numb under his touch, but her mind stays sharp. "I told you I'd do anything," she mock-purrs, cringing inwardly. "But not in these cuffs. They're… restricting me, if you catch my drift."

"Maka!" Soul calls, sounding confused, and it nearly throws her off her game, but she keeps pouting her lips and fluttering her lashes. As much as it disgusts her, she will seduce this sick pervert into dropping his guard. She will get her friends out of this mess, even if it's the last thing she does.

Giriko seems to ponder her request. "You think I'm stupid?"

Yes. "It's not like I can overpower you. You're too…" She swallows her pride. " Big for me to handle."

"Heh, you're not wrong." He pulls back, eyes gliding over her curves, drinking her in. Hook, line, and sinker. His mind is already made up. "Ah, what the hell. Screwing some stiff isn't fun, anyway."

He fishes the key out of his pocket, leaving Maka on the edge of her seat. Her handcuffs click open. Only, she doesn't react fast enough. Giriko quickly makes the first move, shoving her against the wall, hands wandering. She tries in vain to wriggle out of his grip. But she was right, he is overpowering her. Shit, shit, shit. This wasn't the plan.

His finger plucks at the ring under her shirt. "What's this? Some dinky promise ring."

Her eyes find the gun tucked behind his belt.

"Looks like you're breaking your promise, Barbie," he says with a vile grin. His lips ghost across her cheek. "You gonna scream now?"

Something snaps in the distance, but it turns into nothing more than background noise as Maka swiftly draws his gun and fires a couple rounds into his gut. It sounds different to fire from this close, and at a man instead of a machine. The bullets whistle cleanly through his flesh rather than clanging harshly against metal. In all her years as a soldier for the resistance, not once has she fired on a fellow man. Even if Giriko is scum, he is still human, and that fact weighs heavy on her soul.

Giriko coughs up blood, splattering it over her face. "Y-You little… cunt… ass… bitch. " A bloody hand reaches for her throat. "I'll… kill you."

Maka fires again, surprising herself. She didn't even hesitate.

"F-Fuck!"

One bloody finger brushes against her throat before Giriko is thrown away from her like a sack of meat. He hits the ground hard and groans, arms wrapped tight around his middle. A puddle of blood surrounds him, growing. She expects his last words to fall from his mouth - something foul, threatening, cursing her - but all she gets is a dying hiss before his lungs give out. The scumbag dies a quiet, agonizing death.

Maka slowly looks up. For a moment, she swears she sees a flash of red, but it quickly disappears.

"Are you hurt?" comes a gentle voice, worried. Suddenly, the snapping noise - the sound of handcuffs breaking - hits her, especially as Soul's shadow comes into focus, rough around the edges, but so inexplicably him it hurts. In a good way. Seeing him brings tears to her eyes.

"S-Soul?"

"I know, I look like hot shit. Promise my personality is still intact, though." There he goes, cracking jokes. She really is a sucker, she thinks, because his wisecracks hit their mark - her sore, throbbing heart.

"Y-You killed him."

Maka instinctively points the gun in Hiro's direction. The timid boy's hands fly up in surrender, eyes wide with panic. His crystal blues brim with tears and his pants darken as he wets himself, puddling on the floor. He begs for her to spare him, to let him go, please, he doesn't want to die. She can't help but think about her offer from earlier. How he pulled away from her and called her a liar. Or how he watched Giriko have his way with her, captivated, like he was taking notes.

She squeezes the trigger just a little. The gun is aching to fire again.

"Please, d-don't kill me."

Can she kill again without hesitation?

"Maka," Soul says, his breath warm against her ear. Her finger twitches. He presses his hand down on the barrel of the gun, encouraging her to lower it slowly. She does. "He's not worth it. Don't bother wasting a bullet on him."

Hiro promptly takes his leave, rushing out the door with his tail between his legs. Maka huffs. Good riddance. Only, her body trembles at the thought of how she nearly considered ending the boy's life, no matter how pathetic.

"It's over." He slowly pulls the gun out of her grip. "We need to go."

Giriko is dead by her own hand. So yes, it is over, but at what cost? Now she knows that killing another human being isn't beneath her. She is a killer, regardless of whether or not Giriko deserved it, or if it was justified as self-defense. It's still blood staining her hands. Her and death have just become intimate on another level, crossing a line Maka thought she never would.

Is this another stain on her legacy?

As Soul hurries to free Dog and Kid from their restraints, Maka wonders if humanity is truly worth saving if people like Giriko exist. She quickly redacts that thought and focuses on Kid's heartfelt resolve, that their ragtag group is somehow humanity's last hope in the war against the machines.

Question is… are they enough?


	7. Chapter 7

Escaping Giriko's compound is far easier than they expected, especially as Hiro's exaggerated story - about how Maka killed in Giriko in cold blood - spreads amongst the men. More than anything, they are escorted out with no trouble. No one fires on them or spits any snide remarks. Without their leader, they're fairly tame. She wonders if they had their own grievances with how Giriko ran things. Judging by their mixed reactions - one man even saluted her - she'd say he wasn't very popular.

They spend the rest of the day on the run, too shaken to stop and catch their breath, and end up at a police station Soul says he visited before that has running water. Lucky for them, it still does. They take turns using the showers in the locker room to wash off… well, everything .

The water feels good as it splashes over her skin, pooling all the blood, grime, and Giriko at her feet for the drain to swallow up. Maka closes her eyes, tipping her chin up to let the water hit her face. She runs her fingers through her tangled hair. The moment feels suspiciously calm.

Without warning, she hears the echo of Giriko's death rattle, a gurgly hiss, and startles, bracing herself on the shower wall. Her eyes search for him, as if he's right behind her. She'll feel his breath frisk her skin any second now. You gonna scream for me? But his touch, his breath, his voice - they never come. Maka exhales deeply.

Why did killing him feel so bittersweet? He deserved it - he was hurting Soul, touching her. He even threatened to shoot Kid's brains out . But she knows why she feels the way she does. He was a rotten, good-for-nothing scumbag, but he was human. Flesh and blood like her. A monster, yes, but not a machine. Maka swore only to kill machines. She should've known breaking that promise would take a heavy toll on her.

"Maka?"

She quickly turns the water off and reaches for her towel. "Y-Yes! I'm almost done."

Maka feels Soul rest against the stall siding. Waiting in the other room obviously wasn't close enough for him. He's been awfully attentive since their escape, keeping a watchful, mother hen eye on her. He hasn't said much other than what's necessary - directions, mission details with Kid, calling for Dog to stay by his side. But she knows what happened with Giriko scared him. It's why he can't give her any space. He's afraid that if he leaves her, something bad will happen.

Instinctively, she presses her hand where the middle of his back must be. "Soul?"

He sighs deeply, releasing far more than just his breath. "Fighting isn't cool anymore. I don't care that you lied, I care that you're still breathing. Damn it, Maka - why do you have to be the hero all the time? It's gonna get you killed."

"Says the guy who literally tried to sacrifice himself! You're the one with a death wish, stupid. I want you to stay alive, too!"

"Errr, but you! Y-You… you offered yourself up to him to save me," he says, shakily. "He was on top of you, and I… I couldn't think. I…" His voice drops off.

Walking out of the shower stall in only a towel isn't one of her brightest ideas, but her emotions are calling the shots right now. Rational thought is on the back burner as Soul quietly asks for her help. Damn, she really is whipped.

"Soul, look at me." Her own voice wavers, taken aback by the sight of him, shirtless. Right. He was rummaging around for an untorn shirt to wear under his jacket. He also called dibs on the shower next.

He slowly lifts his head, eyes going wide for a split second. There's a crop-dusting of pink on his cheeks that makes her stomach flutter. Good, she's not the only one feeling flustered over their lack of clothing.

"It's not your fault," she says firmly. "It's like you said, I'm still breathing. I'm still here."

He balls his fists. "I wanted to kill him. Beat his fucking head in. Something. But all I could do was watch while he -"

Her finger touches his lips. "Don't say it. Please?"

"Maka…"

Her finger falls down his chin, landing on the tip of his scar. She feels his breath halt in his chest. "You never told me about this."

"I know, I'm sorry," he says tightly. "I'm such a hypocrite."

"Mmm, yep." Maka traces his scar and marvels at its rough edges, how it mars his skin in a ghostly palish-pink. What could have done this to him? Who was he in his past life? So many questions, not enough answers. She follows it all the way down to his hip bone before she realizes what she's doing.

Soul coughs awkwardly. "Y-Yeah."

She coils her hand back to her chest, blushing.

"I didn't want to scare you away," he starts, scratching his neck sheepishly. "I'm already the freak with no memory. I didn't want to add 'Frankenstein scar' to the list. Admit it, you would've ran."

"No… I wouldn't have." Running would've been the easy way out. Logical. His lost time is suspicious, scary even, and now his nasty scar with unknown origins is staring her right in the face like a puzzle that refuses to be solved. Something whispers from the dark corners of her mind but she doesn't listen. Even her resistance training lends its voice. Again, she ignores it. Truth is, she could never leave Soul, even with everything in her being telling her something isn't right. She's in too deep. Can't he see that?

"You're wearing the ring," he says bluntly.

Not what she was expecting. She sighs, ignoring the brow he quirks at her, like he doesn't know what he's doing. Would it kill him to acknowledge the elephant in the room? The mushy feelings drifting between them, the line blurring between friends and more. Among other things , her dark corners whisper. She needs him to say something first so she doesn't have to. This subject change roulette is getting old fast.

She starts to take off the chain. "Sorry, I can give it back -"

"No, keep it. Looks good on you."

"Uh, thanks," she says, blinking owlishly. "You sure?"

He smiles. "Positive."

The silence stretches warmly between them, inviting a bold feeling to wash over their exchange. She feels awfully brave now. When Soul gently cups her cheek, Maka doesn't flinch away or break eye contact. He frowns, rubbing her bruise with his thumb. She bites her lip. Not knowing what to expect when he suddenly leans in, she closes her eyes. The feeling of her face hitting bare skin snaps them wide open again.

"I'm sorry I've been such a jerk," he says, pulling her into a hug, not a… err, nevermind. "I was hurting, but you didn't deserve that."

She shakes her head. "No, I deserved it. I should've told you about my past sooner, so I'm sorry. I messed up."

"Yeah, you kinda did." She playfully bumps his chest, eliciting a chuckle out of him. "But I forgive you."

Soul forgives her. Like, actually forgives her. She isn't a lost cause after all. So, it's only fair that she explains herself, right? Even if it's complicated and has enough backfire to tear apart the resistance, she has to. Maka owes him that. No, she owes him everything.

"Papa knew Judgment Day was gonna happen," she whispers. "He pulled me out of school and took me to some presidential doomsday shelter. I watched the bombs drop knowing my father had something to do with it." She laughs coldly. "So that's why I lied. To protect him, the resistance, myself… because that's what I've got to live up to. It's my legacy to screw up. I'm nobody's hero."

He stays hair-raisingly quiet. Her heart plunges into her gut, but then he says, "That's… fucked up, wow." The shock slowly morphs into something else, something more serious. "You're a lot of things, Maka. Brave, stubborn, naive, a little hot-tempered…"

"Soul."

"But you are not a screw-up. Trust me."

"You mean it?" she croaks, revealing a chink in her armor. Some emotional phlegm sneaks through the cracks against her will. It wasn't all that long ago Maka promised to keep her emotions under lock and key for the greater good thinking it was her greater good. But as Soul showers her with validation, she realizes that maybe there's no weakness in letting her emotions show - she can find strength in them, too. He taught her that even in his own moments of emotional constipation.

"I do." His cheeks pink a little. "And for what it's worth, you're sorta my hero? Shit, that's so cheesy. But you've saved my ass a couple times now, so… yeah."

Maka smiles warmly, deciding against teasing him to save him his precious "coolness" or whatever. "Thank you, Soul."

He shrugs. "You're welcome."

She presses her cheek against his chest. Her eyes cast downward, burning holes between her wet toes. Something's been bothering her since this morning and she figures now is a good time to speak up. While they're alone and vulnerable like this. "Soul, promise me something.

"Hmm? Anything."

"Promise you won't leave." His sharp words from earlier, swearing he'd never join the resistance, still haunt her. She never imagined being this close to someone - she holds her friends dear, cherishes them, but not like this. The thought of losing him breaks something in her, something warm, something too deep for words. Saying that she can't live without him sounds cheesy, cliché , over the top. But damn it all, it might be true.

"I won't," he breathes against her hairline. "I promise."

She beams up at him. "Thank you."

Whether Soul likes it or not - and she's pretty sure he sides with the former - he is stuck with her. Maka isn't ready to let him go. Not now, not ever. Especially not before they explore what this thing means. All these mushy feelings constricting in her chest.

"Uh, I should really shower. And," he swallows nervously, "you're still very naked. Not that I haven't seen you 'undressed' before, but still. Boundaries?"

"Soul!" she snaps, smacking him upside the head. Her face boils red.

Touching moment is officially over.

* * *

They spend the night at the station. Traveling in the dark is suicide, seeing as how terminators have night vision optics and they don't. She still has no idea how Soul survived a night alone on the city streets. By all means, he should be dead. Terminated. Yet, miraculously, he gets around without being detected.

Maka hears another whisper in her head trying to tell her something, but she shushes it.

The wind rattles the front doors on their hinges, keeping her sharp, awake. From her spot on the floor in the office bullpen, she has eyes on every exit, every window. One hand rests on top of her gun while the other plays with Soul's hair in her lap. He's out like a light, snoring lightly, drool dangling from his lower lip. Soul using her lap as a pillow while he sleeps was a spur of the moment kind of thing, no doubt brought on by their locker room conversation. This closeness is something they both crave now. He grounds her, especially now as every little sound puts her on edge.

Dog is curled up in a ball in front of Soul, happily playing the role of little spoon. Every once in awhile he stirs, whimpering and running in his sleep, and she has to scratch behind his ear to snap him out of his nightmare. Dog wakes, sneezes, and quickly falls back asleep. He snores in sync with his master.

Kid joins them, having taken some time to himself. Lord knows he needed a minute to truly mourn his losses. He sits cross-legged across from her, quiet, eyes pensive. The candlelight - vanilla scented, of course - flickers across his face, showing a deep crease between his brows.

"Is something wrong?" she tries, not knowing what to expect.

"How well do you know Soul?"

She blinks, taken aback. "He's my best friend."

"Right." She hates how his voice sounds disappointed like her answer wasn't good enough for him. "So you're saying you know him well."

"I do." She knows his heart and soul.

Again, Kid doesn't look convinced. "He broke out of his handcuffs."

"Um, yes?" She really doesn't understand where he's going with this.

"Giriko hurt his hand punching him," he says, face pinched in deep thought. "Said it felt like hitting a brick."

The more he speaks, the more he sounds like the whispers she keeps muting in her head.

"His stamina is abnormal. Not to mention the strength he needed to break those cuffs." His bold observations just keep coming, one by one, rendering her speechless, numb. "Wasn't he injured in the Moto-Terminator attack? And suddenly he's good as new like nothing happened."

"Kid…" she warns, feeling a chill creep down her spine. He can't make the whispers real. Soul is Soul , the man who saved her life and glued all her broken pieces back together again with a warm smile and a heart made of gold. Kid can't take that away from her.

"I swear I saw his eyes flash red." Her lungs concave. The whispers speak more clearly now: you saw it too. A spark of red after she shot Giriko dead. There've been other signs - his patchy memory, the scar across his chest - but she's ignored them up until now, always giving Soul the benefit of the doubt. Because he deserves it. "Maka, I know you care about him. But are you sure he's even human?"

"He risked his life for you!" she hisses. "He was ready to sacrifice himself to save us. How can you even say that!" She cradles Soul's head protectively in her lap, praying he doesn't wake up. "Soul isn't one of them, he can't be."

"Terminators can be designed to infiltrate. I know you know this. He's gained your trust, and once he finds the right moment to strike…"

Her hand moves on its own. Before she knows it, her gun is raised and aimed at Kid's chest. "Shut up! You're wrong! Soul would never hurt me. You don't know him like I do."

"You're right," he says, slowly, moving his hand away from his waist. So her instincts were right: he was motioning for a weapon. "I don't know him like you do. That's why I can see the things you don't want to see." He looks down the barrel of her pistol, swallowing a lump in his throat. He thinks she has the guts to shoot him. She doesn't, but he doesn't need to know that.

"He could ruin everything if you're wrong. This mission is important, Maka. It's our only hope to win this war. Are you willing to risk your resistance… no, all of humanity over some fleeting romance?"

The gun rattles in her grip. "Soul isn't a machine. He is human. More than that, he's one of us! He deserves our loyalty. So, shut up, and trust me on this. And if you try to hurt Soul, you'll regret it. You hear me?"

His brooding silence is expected, but it isn't what Maka needs right now. What she needs is for him to promise he won't hurt Soul. To believe in her when she says Soul is too warm to be made of metal. He isn't a threat - he is the key to her salvation in a world that's tried so hard to beat her down. Soul is a part of humanity's last hope whether Kid likes it or not.

"Well?" she says, lowering her gun.

Kid sighs. Whether it's in defeat or in relief because he doesn't have a gun pointed at him anymore, she doesn't know. "I really hope you're right."

"I am."

And with that, their conversation promptly drops off a cliff. Only quiet closes the gap between them. That, and the dancing, vanilla bean-scented candlelight. Maka sneaks a glance down at Soul, trying to burn the seed of doubt before it takes root in her mind like the whispers. He is human. He just has to be.

She really can't afford to be wrong.

* * *

"Dog!" Soul calls, patting his knees. "Come, you little bastard. Should've found you a damn leash." Dog runs to his master, all tongue and slobber, and looks up at him, beaming with innocence. Soul sighs and scratches one of his spots between his shoulder blades. "You're the worst, I swear."

Maka hates how she observes this interaction with a fine-toothed comb, looking for something… different. A blip in Soul's behavior. She blames Kid and his paranoia - he and Liz would get along like two peas in a pod, always on the prowl for worst-case scenarios. Her whispers won't shut up either.

"You good, Maka?"

She blinks. "Yes, I'm fine."

"You sure?" Soul pries, raising a brow. "You were making a face."

"I was not," she huffs.

He shrugs. "If you say so."

They've been wandering the city streets for hours now, following the map she drew the other night. The sun beams down on them harshly, creating a patch of sweat that crawls down her back. Their location is becoming more familiar to her now. Echoes of past supply runs, search and rescues, and "side trips" with the resistance show in various spots in the area. Like, she remembers Liz teaching her makeup 101 at the Sephora they passed a couple of blocks ago. Or Tsubaki beheading a terminator inside the 7/11 on the corner up ahead. Blake also christened her on her twenty-first birthday with her first shot of whiskey at the hole-in-the-wall bar not too far from here.

Maka frowns. She cherishes these memories with a grain of salt. The fates of Liz, Patty, and Tsubaki are all up in the air. She hopes they're at the bunker right now, safe and sound, swapping stories or getting some reps in at the gym. Sharing boy problems, meaning… Blake. The man whose fate she does know. Or hopes she doesn't.

"You're making a face again."

She sighs. "Bite me, Soul."

"That would definitely leave a mark," he says, grinning playfully.

Maka blushes and smacks his shoulder. At the very least, she still has Soul - who is a lot of things, but definitely not a machine. What terminator flirts, for pete's sake. Or has a toothy grin warm enough to make her heart melt.

Kid catches her eye, reminding her that team "humanity's last hope" isn't all on the same page. A thick air surrounds him like a dark cloud. Any words he's spoken since the police station have been short and mission-oriented like he's allergic to small talk and acknowledging a man who isn't made of metal. He probably still holds a grudge from when she pulled a gun on him last night. In her defense, he was reaching first.

"Maka!"

She freezes, a numbing feeling shooting throughout her body, prickling. She knows that voice, also knows the army fatigues that go along with it. A matching set. Is her army man really here? Or is this just a hallucination spawning from the desert heat. Her head whips side to side, checking to see if her boys heard it, too. Judging from their wide-eyed expressions, she'd say yes. Dog barks his own confirmation.

"S-Sid?" she says, face stricken with a whirlwind of emotions. Last she saw him, they were huddled around the radio listening to Kid's broadcast. Oh no, she thinks. Blake was like a son to him. Sid was never an emotional guy - she and Blake used to joke that he was made of stone - but he always had a soft spot for her loudmouth friend/brother. To lose his pain in the ass, but devoted, hard-working son… it must have been devastating for him.

"Maka!"

His silhouette, blurred by the heat, appears over the horizon at the entrance of an old parking garage. It's him, she knows it is - she can see that stiff, stick-up-his-butt posture from a mile away. Who else would bother with army fatigues in a dying world with no military to breathe orders down your neck?

From behind her, Dog growls. She scratches behind his ear. "It's okay, boy. He's a friend."

"Who is this guy?" Soul asks, a little tense. His eyes keep shifting between her and Dog, and the latter won't stop growling despite her peace offering scratches.

"My father's right-hand man, Sid Barrett." She shoots Kid a sideways glance. "Here's our fast pass to the resistance. We're almost there."

Kid nods. He remains tight-lipped, but she knows how much this mission means to him. More importantly, what it's cost him. Akane, Clay, the rest of his group at the radio station, his adopted sisters. It carries the weight of their sacrifices on its shoulders. Somewhere deep down his inner-hero is teeming at the thought of making their deaths mean something. Maka wants that, too, and once he can see past their little hiccup last night, she hopes they can become good friends. As in, good friends that end the machine apocalypse together.

"Why's he just standing there?"

She rolls her eyes. "I don't know, Soul! He could be waiting for someone. Or he's hurt! Point is, he's my friend. If you can't trust him, trust me." He should know better than to punch a gift horse in the mouth.

"Maka!"

"Sid, it's me! We're coming!" she calls back.

Dog growls more fervently in the background.

Soul shakes his head, mouth drawn in a firm line. "Something doesn't feel right. I mean, look at Dog. You know he's got good instincts. Are you sure that's Sid?"

"Positive. I can prove it." By prove it, she means to waltz up to her army man to show that he's harmless. He only kills machines. And to him, she is family. He would never hurt her.

Maka takes her chance and bolts down the road, just a hair's length out of Soul's grasp as he reaches out in vain to hold her back.

"Maka!" she hears in unison by Soul, Sid, and Kid. Dog barks his own version as well.

"Sid!" she calls again, putting on a bright smile. This is the first glimpse of home she's seen in over a month. Her eyes glisten with tears.

"Maka!"

As she draws closer, Soul's words echo in her head. Something doesn't feel right. Sid hasn't moved since she first laid eyes on him, and he doesn't react to her at all. He stays perfectly still. As if he's taken her and Blake's running joke of him being made of stone way too seriously. He says nothing but her name, too. All red flags.

Maka slams on the brakes, standing roughly ten feet away from him. At first glance, nothing about him seems different. He looks like Sid. All his tattoos line up, his army fatigues have a patch with his name on it, and his face is undoubtedly him, stubble and all. He is a carbon copy of her army man, but is he really him?

She stares deeply into his eyes, her hand falling slowly over the gunbelt at her waist. "Sid?"

His grey eyes suddenly glow red. "Maka!"

Pseudo-Sid charges and meets her in two lengthy bounds, side-swiping her hard into the parking garage. Maka gasps, the air knocked out of her lungs, as she hits the side of a pick-up truck with enough force to break a window. She falls limply to her knees. Her body feels the impact down to her toes like an aftershock. As she gulps for air, machine gun fire breaks out in the street. A bulky terminator with a railgun. Odds are, Soul and Kid are caught in the crossfire.

Maka grabs her gun and points it at, well, who knows what. The way he carries himself is so Sid-like, it's disorienting. His red eyes like them are all that's keeping her gun steady.

"Maka," it taunts in Sid's deep voice. It doesn't seem to know any other words.

She shoots. When the bullet hits its chest, a silver kind of goo absorbs it, creating a bullet hole for only a second before healing itself. Fake Sid tilts his head at her. Panicked, she fires again. Same thing.

"Bulletproof," she utters in shock. What exactly is this thing made of?

It grins just before it charges her again. Maka ducks, missing a punch that goes straight through the truck's passenger door. While it struggles to remove its hand, she crawls underneath, trying to buy herself some time to think her way out of this mess.

Terminators can be designed to infiltrate, Kid said last night. They can look human, act human. They'll do anything, be anything to make someone drop their guard so that they can fulfill their manufactured goal: terminate. In her resistance research archives, she remembers reading about a malleable type of terminator with the ability to take on the appearance of people it's been in close contact with. They can memorize that person's general makeup down to the smallest details and mannerisms. She instantly loses color in her face. In most cases, close contact means killing the person they want to imitate.

Suddenly, Maka is greeted by light as her cover is flipped over her head like a weightless table. Not-Sid looms over her, red eyes like laserbeams holding her in place. She looks up at him, paralyzed. With not many options left, she shoots him again between the eyes. The kill shot for the last terminator she fought. His face hugs the bullet in goo before spitting it out at her feet. It clangs and wobbles on the pavement, mocking her.

"Maka."

Thinking this is the end, she closes her eyes. All she feels is total numbness. She can't even hear the railgun outside anymore. This must be the calm before death, the perpetual unfeelingness and silence before… nothing. You're just gone. She wonders if death will greet her like an old friend when it comes to collect her soul. It certainly feels like they're on a first-name basis with all the carnage she attracts.

At the very least, Maka doesn't have to worry about "living" up to a legacy that's caused her nothing but pain these past few years. In death, it finally becomes a moot point.

" No!"

It all happens so fast. Terminator Sid is reaching for her with sharp, needle-like fingers, when a black and red blade suddenly pierces through its chest. Whatever its made out of can't seem to soften or heal the blow with any silver goo. Some sparks crackle around the wound. It twists its head slowly, almost like an owl, to face its attacker, its red eyes flickering on and off.

The same red eyes meet its gaze like looking into a mirror, and they belong to the last person in this dying world that deserves them - the man she loves, and only now, of course, does she have the courage to admit that.

Maka was very, very wrong.

"Soul Eater," the terminator hisses, finally changing its tune. It falls off Soul's blade and lands in a pile of its own silver goo. Slowly, it evaporates into nothing.

"W-What the hell?" Soul says, voice shaky and filled with fear. His eyes keep flashing between the warmth she knows and the demon hiding within. He stares at what once was his arm, now a curved blade, and starts to shake it, as if doing so will shake out the machine in him. His breath is hurried, panicked. He doesn't come across as a terminator lying in wait to strike her down, but it could be an act. It might've all been an act.

Tears in her eyes, Maka slowly aims her gun.

He freezes, warm, red Soul eyes looking at her sadly. "M-Maka?"

Kid finally makes his entrance, gun in hand. His eyes grow wide at the scene. They exchange a look, having a silent conversation with a hint of regretful I told you so mixed in. He, too, raises his gun and trains his crosshairs on Soul. He nods to her, offering to do it himself. He doesn't think she has it in her to pull the trigger.

Does she have it in her to kill Soul?

Maka thinks about the first time she saw him, her half-awake and writhing in pain, as he promised it will all be over soon. Thinks about his concern over her infection that led him to Giriko, to a bullet nicking his shoulder, which evolved into her piecing him back together for a change. About the time they fell asleep, side by side, after he shared his greatest fear - his amnesia - with her and she promised she wasn't afraid. She almost broke him with her lies, but he forgave her and showed her there was more to their story than just him saving her in that studio all those weeks ago. More to her story than a legacy that haunts her every move.

He showed her love - for this dying world, her friends, her father, a dopey labrador, the resistance, humanity, and, most importantly, him. Does saving everything she cares about really mean killing him? Is she capable of that?

"Please, I… I didn't know. This isn't me." He grits his teeth, wincing. "Everything hurts."

"I'm sorry, Soul," Kid says flatly. "But we don't trust machines."

Her instincts answer for her, just as Kid is about to fire.

Maka shoots first and Soul falls to the ground.


	8. Chapter 8

"Damn it ," Kid says between gritted teeth. "I can't believe you shot me!"

Maka cringes, regarding the blood staining his sleeve at the elbow. "I'm sorry! I panicked. And, to be fair, the bullet just grazed you. So did Ireally shoot you?"

"Yes!"

He shifts most of Soul's dead weight over to her side, scowling childishly at her. Maka groans but bears the brunt of it. Let him sulk - she didshoot him without warning, sparing Soul just as he passed out. Now here she is, forcing Kid to look past his black-and-white perspective to see in shades of grey, to see Soul as more than just a machine intent on wiping out humanity.

Maka wants him to see Soul the way she does: as a man that takes bullets for strangers, adopts hopeless strays off the streets, calls his motorcycle baby , listens to old jazz records, and licks every last drop of sauce out of Spaghettio cans. He once told her that he liked the color green because to him it represented the good, while red felt inherently corrupt, cold. How could a terminator possibly have feelings like that? They kill, they don't feel , and if there's anything she's learned about Soul, it's that he feels a lot . He feels for her. There's no way his warm, doting stare in the locker room was just an act. There's no way all of it was just a ruse to terminate her.

So far, she hasn't exactly convinced Kid to think the same way. But at the very least, he hasn't tried to kill Soul again. Especially not now that she's proven that she can shoot him.

Maka kicks open a door to some crusty old motel room, satisfied by the way it slams harshly against the wall. She's been dying to hit something since she first saw Soul's glowing red eyes. She and Kid carry her limp partner to the bed, her tenderly laying down his head on the dusty pillow while Kid carelessly drops the rest of him.

"We need to restrain him," he says, looking down at Soul intensely while he holds his dripping arm. He must be imagining all the different ways there are to kill her best friend. It unsettles her enough to make her hand linger close to her gun. Just in case, she thinks.

"His arm can turn into a blade . He'd just cut out of them anyway."

"They'll slow him down," he says, adding the next part quietly. "Buy us enough time to put him down if he attacks."

Maka shakes her head adamantly. "He won't. Soul did what he did to protect me. If he wanted to kill us, he would have already. You know I'm right."

Kid ignores her, rummaging around the room wordlessly, and eventually comes up with the closest thing to rope that he can find: a wadded bundle of christmas lights. His eyes slowly find her at Soul's bedside, pleading for her to act reasonably. Maka huffs, annoyed. She marches up to him and swipes the lights out of his hands. If he wants Soul tied up, fine. If that's what it will take to keep him from making any rash,homicidal decisions, she'll grin and bear it for Soul's sake.

"Don't just stand there," she says at his surprised expression. "Help me."

They tie Soul to the bed far tighter than she thinks is necessary. Her unconscious tin man looks more like a damsel in distress strapped down to some railroad tracks than a cheap motel bed. The hodgepodge of red and green lights - their colors - wrapped around his body is a nice, ironic touch. If she looks past his restraints, Soul looks peacefully asleep. He looks too much like himself. Human. She'd be lying if she said that didn't make this hurt even more.

Soul is a machine. Machine, machine, machine. She needs to let this new reality sink in, even if she knows Soul is made of more than just metal. He is still warm, still her Soul. He's just more… complicated.

"We need to talk. Now. "

Maka nods gravely and follows Kid outside, her eyes lingering on Soul until he's out of sight.

Dog stays close on her heels, abnormally quiet and skittish. He's been like this since the parking garage. Seeing Soul hold up machine Sid on his blade, or her and Kid aiming their guns at his master, his best friend - that must've been enough to break something in him. Their slobbery, fun-loving Labrador is no more. Now he's just a quiet, canine drone that follows them around with no fuss.

Kid stops in front of an empty vending machine. "I think I've humored you for long enough." He toes the broken glass on the sidewalk, his nerves showing through his bravado. "We have to end this."

Maka feels as if she's just been struck by lightning. "We are not killing Soul."

"He isn't human," he argues, voice clipped. "He is a cold-blooded machine, a terminator. He was designed to infiltrate us and kill us. Last I checked, we were fighting a war against his kind. A war you told me you wanted to win. What war doesn't come with sacrifices? If losing my group was mine, Soul is yours."

His words don't land the way he expects them to. She has sacrificed a lot more than Kid realizes - the loss of his group weighs heavy on her conscience, too; not to mention Blake, Sid, and the uncertainty surrounding the rest of her resistance. She has carried this guilt with her, thislegacy, since the very beginning. It drove her, crippled her. She even tried to run from it. But in the end, the daughter of the resistance couldn't stay away from her cause. Redemption came knocking in the form of Kid and his intel, and she answered. She will always answer.

Maka has sacrificed the lives of millions from her father's mistake, countless survivors, her friends, her resistance, her father's story, her body, her life, but Soul? She refuses to lose him to this war, too. Hasn't she given enough already?

"I don't care what he is," she says slowly as her resolve builds. "Because I know who he is. Soul is Soul, and he saved my life. A terminator saved my life. I can't pretend like he's just a machine, because he's not. He's so much more."

He scowls. "You're blinded by your feelings for him. Are you really going to put everything at risk - your resistance, all of humanity - just for some machine?"

"Yes." Because she owes Soul everything, too.

"I can't believe this." He turns his back to her, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Obviously you've been compromised. You can't do what needs to be done for the greater good. But I can. I will. Too many people have died for this, so… I'm sorry."

"Kid?"

When he turns around to face her, it lines up her shot perfectly: the butt of her pistol right between his eyes. He both sees and doesn't see it coming. In two seconds flat, he's on the ground, unconscious. Dog sniffs him. Whimpering, he looks up at her, head tilted, unsure. She offers them both a weak smile.

"I'm sorry, too."

* * *

Maka drags Kid into the motel room next door with Dog. She haphazardly dresses his wound on his arm with gauze she finds in his pack to stop the trickle of blood leaking out - a quiet apology for shooting him and knocking him out. Then she leaves him, appointing Dog to stand guard. He whines his objection by scratching at the door she closes in his sad, puppy-dog face.

"I'll be back, I promise!"

She isn't leaving Kid behind. What he knows is invaluable to the resistance, and, despite their disagreement, she still considers him a friend. She would never abandon him so coldly. No, she is only trying to buy Soul more time to prove her point - that he's still the same old Soul who put his life on the line for both of them, inherently more human than machine. She will make Kid see him. Then, they'll be off to the resistance to fulfill their mission like the parking garage incident never happened.

Soul just needs to wake up.

Maka rushes to his bedside. He lays there in comatose, having not moved an inch since she last saw him. His chest steadily rises and falls, quietly mocking her. She wonders if a terminator like him really needs to breath. Gently, she grabs his shoulders and tries to shake him awake.

"Soul." Nothing. "Soul." He doesn't budge. She shakes him more violently. "Soul!"

As her attempts to wake him fall on deaf, unconscious ears, she hardly notices how the room lights - still alive even after years of disuse - slowly dim and flicker. Then, a sudden chill creeps into the air as the dead AC unit finds a second wind. It rumbles awake from its spot on the musty windowsill. The Christmas light bulbs twinkle like little sparks but they don't shine bright enough to steal her attention away from Soul.

"M… Maka?" he says under his breath. His eyes are still closed, but she can feel the rest of him stir under her touch. Relief floods her system. Soul is awake, alive, and everything is going to be okay now.

"Soul!" she says with glee. A fleeting thought tells her to kiss him - she did almost lose him again - but she decides against it. Fix this whole misunderstanding with Kid first, mushy feelings later.

Without warning, the AC unit puffs out its last breath of cold air. All of the lights go berserk, shining bright enough to blind her for a split second before dying out, leaving the room pitch black.

Maka blinks in surprise, disoriented by the lights. "What the hell?"

"RUN!"

A hand suddenly lurches toward her throat, snapping the restraints and grabbing her with enough force to crush her windpipe - except it finds a sweet spot between choking her and letting a snippet of oxygen sneak down to her lungs. Too in shock to fight back, Maka is slowly suspended in the air.

"S-Soul," she wheezes, hands bracing against his grip.

Now open, his eyes show a flash of red glowing in the dark, foreign irises twisting to focus on her. "Soul isn't here anymore." It's his voice, but it isn't. Something has hijacked him. This isn't her Soul. It can't be.

Not-Soul throws her against the wall like a rag doll. The impact sends a sharp pain through her back and leaves her staggered on the floor, gulping for air like a fish.

"Maka Albarn, daughter of Spirit Albarn, the leader of the resistance," he drones. She swears she can hear an echo in his voice, like someone else is speaking through him. "I must admit, I expected more."

"Give me… back… Soul," she snarls.

The soft glow of his eyes shows him smirking. "Soul Eater has malfunctioned, so I am here to take his place. Your termination is of utmost importance as the inheritor of your father's resistance. Without you, it will all fall apart."

Her glare cuts through the dark. "I'll say it one more time," she breathes. "Give. Me. Back. Soul."

"We profiled you to be reckless and highly emotional," he says, forming his arm into a blade. "But even we couldn't have predicted that you'd fall for him. Or that Soul Eater would revert back to his more… 'organic' nature."

"Organic? You're saying Soul is human?"

Not-Soul sighs, sounding bored. "Partly. His design blends our technology with what remains from his human life." He bumps his chest with his unbladed fist. "He still has a beating heart, for instance. All this, to manufacture the perfect infiltrator unit. One that can feel and empathize with its target. Only, Soul Eater lost sight of his objective when he came out of stasis seven months ago. In his confusion, he reverted back to his human identity. But it was fractured."

His amnesia, she thinks. "Why are you telling me all this? Why not just kill me? It's not like Skynet to talk first, terminate later."

"You're going to die, Ms. Albarn," he - it, Skynet - says. "I believe it's common courtesy to answer your dying wishes. Especially if my words help you suffer more. The more you suffer, the easier it will be to destroy your father and the resistance. In fact…" He appears in front of her quickly, shoving her back against the wall with his blade tickling just beneath her chin. "I assume you must be curious about your friend's lost past. And I wonder if Soul Eater's model can connect with human neuro-pathways like he can with a fellow machine's. Let's experiment, shall we?"

When his forehead lightly touches hers, Maka feels her mind slingshot out of her head, followed by an intense wave of nausea. She blinks and the motel room vanishes, replaced by the smell of disinfectant first, then a stark white room. A hospital room. Out of her mind's fog, she sees two men - one in bed, looking hollow and sickly, while the other sits at his bedside, dangling a familiar trinket in front of his companion's face. They both have snow white hair. Suddenly, it clicks.

"Here," says the man she decides isn't Soul, smiling. "I'm tired of you saying you won't live long enough for mother to marry you off. So, this is like a promise. A promise ring, yes, but at least I hooked up to a cool chain!"

Soul groans. "Wes, you're so stupid."

"Aw, is that really how you say thank you, little brother? Look, I even had it engraved!"

"Seriously?"

"Yes," he says, just as his happy-go-lucky tone suddenly falls flat. "Now… promise me you won't give up."

The mood shifts, darkening the room in this dreamscape.

"Wes, I'm so tired," Soul says, sighing. "I'm not going to beat this, y'know. You heard the docs… there's no cure. There's only 'keeping me comfortable' or whatever. What's it gonna take for you and mom to believe that I'm dying? So you can stop draining all your savings on me. I'm not worth it."

"Quit worrying about the money," Wes says with a frown. "Worry about you. Focus on getting better."

"Wes..."

He drops the chain in Soul's palm. "You're going to beat this, Soul. You're so strong and you don't even know it. You'll see." Wes grins. "You're going to give this ring to a girl someday, I guarantee it."

Soul looks hardly convinced, but he lets his fingers curl around the ring and chain to humor his brother. "Yeah, okay."

The scene slowly pulls away, as if she's being dragged out of it against her will. The room begins to blur. Faces, too. Instinctually, Maka reaches out to Soul - in this memory he is nothing but skin and bones, a dead man pretending that he's still alive for his brother's sake, and all she wants to do is hold him and tell him that he's worth everything to her. But the scene shatters before she can.

"Ah, so it does work. Very interesting."

Maka breaks into a coughing fit. "W-What the hell?"

"Soul Evans died of leukemia in 2000." Maka blanches - the current year is 2019, and Judgment Day happened back in 2009. "But not before he 'donated' his body to science to help his family with his medical bills."

"You're a monster," she says, glaring. To defile Soul's body like that and turn him into a weapon, when all he wanted was to spare his family from financial hardship after he was gone…

"No, humanity is the monster. I exist to purge them from this world that they've destroyed with their negligence and inclination to violence." Its hand finds her throat again, only it's the blade this time. It nicks her skin as its red eyes cut deeply into hers. "To kill the resistance is to kill humanity's last hope. Our calculations say that hope will die with you."

"I swear, I'm gonna kill you," she spits in its face, Soul's face. A trickle of blood runs down her neck as she speaks against the blade. "I'll purge you from this world. This isn't the end, it's only the beginning, you evil son of a bitch."

It chuckles, too Soul-like for comfort, and steps away from her, opening its arms wide like wings. "By all means, shoot. A bullet straight through the heart should do the trick. Killing me while I control Soul Eater's body will have the desired results. I'll be permanently disconnected from my server - I will be purged, just as you said. But we both know I won't be dying alone."

Maka's blood runs cold. She could destroy Skynet once and for all, but Soul dies with it. An impossible choice that should be easy for someone who's always dreamed of leading humanity to victory over the machines. Kid surely wouldn't hesitate. She, on the other hand, is left speechless, unmoving. That is, until her hand develops a mind of its own and unholsters her gun, slowly raising it to line up with Soul's chest. Her finger numbly clicks the safety off.

Soul would tell her to shoot him. He would rather die than hurt her. He would gladly sacrifice himself to save humanity if it meant saving her .

"Well?"

Maka drops the gun, repulsed. She can't do it. She can't put the "greater good" before Soul's life. Humanity's last hope isn't her, not by a longshot - not if she can't take this shot to end the war once and for all. Not if she can't erase her father's greatest mistake as it stands right in front of her, asking her to, taunting her, because it knows. It said it wanted her to suffer, to stew in her hopelessness before she dies, all to cripple the resistance; and she plays into its plans perfectly. In the end, she is just too goddamn selfish to let Soul go.

By dying like this, Maka hopes that the resistance can at least use her as a martyr to fuel their cause. The resistance will not die with her. They're far stronger than Skynet gives them credit for - her father, Sid, Blake, Tsubaki, Liz, Patty, all of them. Kid will make it to the bunker and tell them the location of Skynet's mainframe computer. Her death isn't meaningless. As she told it so boldly, this isn't the end, it's only the beginning.

"I thought so." It drives Soul's foot sharply into her gut, knocking the wind out of her. "Now that I've broken you, I can terminate you."

Maka is beaten within an inch of her life. To make it look good for the resistance, she thinks, because why else would it prolong the inevitable when it has a blade to stab her with? Her mouth cakes with blood that drools down her chin. Broken ribs constrict painfully for air. Between every kick, every punch, she sees Soul's face, eyes cold and calculating, borderline sadistic for a machine that shouldn't feel as it possesses her best friend's body. She wonders if Soul is still in there somewhere, watching helplessly as Skynet forces him to terminate her.

It pulls her up into a sitting position by the chain around her neck, snapping it off with a wicked grin. "Any last words, Maka Albarn?"

"S… S-Soul," Maka wheezes, just as the blade kisses her throat. She tries to see past its glowing red eyes, to the warmth she knows is still there. "It's… not y-your fault. I want… I want you to know that I-I love you." The blade breaks the skin, deeper than the time before, making her wince against the sting. "I-I don't care what you are… it's about who you are. You're still Soul. Skynet doesn't own you. And… a-and I love you, okay? So come back to me, please. I-I need you."

"Touching," it says dismissively. "Almost brings a tear to my eye… almost."

Only, there is a tear in its eye. Maka watches as the tiny droplet breaks free, curving over the slope of Soul's cheek.

"S-Soul?"

"Not here," Skynet hisses, throwing its arm out to toss away the ring and chain, but its fist doesn't open and keeps the little trinket locked in a vice grip. No matter how hard it tries, Soul's fingers won't pry open. "What the hell?"

Maka pushes against the blade. "Soul!"

"No, no, no, no," it shouts, and for once she can hear Soul's voice overshadow Skynet's warped echo. "You shouldn't be strong enough to override the chip."

"Guess I'll just pull it out, then… to make it official," Soul's voice quips from the void, his eyes flickering back and forth between cold and warm. He is fighting back! Soul isn't lost after all.

"You… will not. "

In their struggle for control of Soul's body, Maka feels the blade swipe across her neck, erasing her ability to speak. All she can manage is a tight gurgling noise. Her hands grope her throat, trying to catch the blood before it spills. But her hands aren't enough to catch it all as it leaks through her fingers and soaks the front of her shirt. She falls into a puddle of herself, face frozen in shock.

" Maka!"

"She's dying, boy. You can't save her now."

Her consciousness flickers, a lot like Soul's eyes. All the energy drains from her body like her blood. She feels trapped in a place between alive and dead as her mind begins to swirl and her body switches between feeling buoyant and heavy like lead. In flashes, she watches Soul scream and thrash about in the room, fingers digging harshly into the nape of his neck. Maka blinks, and he's holding a small, blinking object in his bloody hand. He crushes it. Another blink, and his face is only a breath away from hers.

"Maka, stay with me," he begs, eyes watery and now his own. "Please, you can't die. It can't be my fault." His hands try to catch her blood, applying pressure to the wound, but she knows it isn't enough. "I love you! So, live for me. Dying for each other isn't cool, you said so yourself. Please, you gotta live. I-I need you, too."

A small smile tugs at her lips. She wants to kiss him, to taste him before she goes, but the universe is cruel to her, leaving her motionless. Instead, she feels his lips press against her forehead. The moment is awfully bittersweet, especially now as her consciousness is pulled into the abyss.

"Maka!"

Maka lets the darkness take her away, too numb, too far gone to feel the fire awakening in Soul's hands. Her fight is over. In death, she dreams of a world without machines - all but one.

* * *

As a dull ache pries her tired eyes open, Maka realizes that death didn't take to her like she thought it would.

"Hey, pipsqueak," a familiar voice says. "Long time, no see."

Nevermind, she thinks, eyes widening. She must be dead. How else does she explain Blake grinning down at her in his studded jean jacket and horrendously white track pants? No, she has to be dead and this is heaven's - or hell's - cruel idea of waking her out of limbo: by showing her a friend who is obviously gone and blinding her with his poor fashion choices.

"B… Blake?" she rasps weakly. It hurts to speak. Shouldn't she feel relief in death?

"In the flesh," he says, pointing his thumb at his chest. "Uh, don't talk, though. Doc says your 'larynx' was pretty fucked up."

Instinctively, Maka reaches for her throat.

"Yeah, I wouldn't do that."

Pressing her finger lightly against the gauze sends a jolt of pain through her. She gasps, biting her lip. The sting lingers much like a burn. Up until now, she must've been numb to it. But… Maka remembers bleeding out, dying, no matter how much pressure she and Soul tried applying to the wound. There was too much blood. She should be very dead.

Blake sighs. "Told you not to touch it."

She shoots him a look, hoping their bond can speak for her. Her hand hovers over the gauze to give him some direction. Hopefully, her eyes can convey a simple message: how.

"Oh, right. Tin man cauterized it with his hot hands."

She blinks owlishly at him. Tin man? Does he mean… "S-Soul!" The sharp pain is worth it to say his name again.

"Yeah, he's okay," Blake says casually, completely offsetting her emotions. "Dude hijacked a Moto-Terminator and showed up on our doorstep covered in your blood. Said he knew where to find us 'cause you told him." The connection, she thinks, she must've shared it with him while she searched his memories. "Anyway, he's chilling in lock-up. Gotta make sure he's safe to mingle with everybody else. Brooklyn 3 says he is, but I'm not budging until the Doc gives the okay."

Blake's obsession with nicknames is making her head spin. Who's the Doc? Brooklyn 3?

Luckily, he seems to realize his mistake. "Riiiiight. You're way behind with the times. We gotta play catch up."

Thus, begins Blake's riveting tale, beginning with his daring escape from the HK aerial unit all those weeks ago. Apparently, he rode the damn thing like some space cowboy and crashed it into the coffee shop down the street. He holds up one of his hands, revealing a metal prosthetic, and boasts about the ride getting a little 'bumpy'; he says the Doc made him the new hand.

Doc, she learns, is a man named Stein who claims he helped develop Skynet. As Blake elegantly puts it: Doc knows what makes terminator's tick. If his new hand is any tell - a blend of technology and human tissue that "connects" his metal hand to his once severed, now living nerve endings - Stein isn't lying about his past.

Did he know her father? She can't ask fast enough with her aching throat.

Blake moves on quickly to Brooklyn 3 - Kid - who happens to be Liz and Patty's long lost brother. She mentally slaps herself for not connecting the dots sooner. Regardless, she is happy for him; he desperately needed to catch a break after losing so much. Liz and Patty, too.

On a whim, Maka wonders if Kid forgives her for shooting him and knocking him out. Blake says he's visited her a few times, so she'll tentatively say that he does. She'll apologize anyway.

"Papa?" she asks, testing her voice. It still stings, but it's getting there.

Blake turns deathly quiet, his eyes falling to the floor. It takes him a second to find his voice, which is usually always locked and loaded - he never shuts up. Unless what he has to say is too much to swallow. This reminds her too much of how he acted after Kim and Jackie died.

"He's… gone."

Her heart leaps into her sore throat. "W-What do you mean… gone?"

"He went after you after I came back and told him what happened," he says carefully. "We haven't seen him or Sid since."

Sid is dead, her mind roars in her panic. Killed and impersonated by a malleable infiltrator type. What does this mean about Papa, then? Is he dead, too? Her eyes brim with tears. She hasn't told him that she loves him in years, that she still loves him, even for all his faults. Spirit Albarn isn't a perfect man - he drove her mother away, launched Skynet, bedded women to wash away his sorrows - but he's always been a loving father.

"Stein thinks Skynet has them to collect intel on us. Trust me, if your pops was dead, we would've gotten a huge broadcast or something. That's not the kind of death they'd want to keep quiet."

Skynet told her she needed to suffer to break the resistance. Did it mean her father?

"B...Blake," she whispers softly, to appease the sting. Her message is short but bitter. "S-Sid. He's gone. Terminator."

He looks taken aback for a moment, before hiding his emotions behind a mask of indifference. "Oh… I guess it's not like he was important to them. Sid wouldn't give them anything, even if they gutted his stubborn ass. That's just the type of man he… was."

In the silence that stretches between them, Maka takes his human hand and squeezes. He squeezes back, smiling softly.

"Guess this shitshow is our inheritance," he drawls, pulling his hand away. His tough-guy image is saving face now after "pretending" to be vulnerable. "Kid says he knows where to hit Skynet next. Says we might actually have a chance to kick this war in the ass." Skynet's beating heart, she thinks. They'll burn it to the ground. "You know I can't do this without you, right?"

Maka Albarn, daughter of the resistance, now leader of the resistance. She wasn't ready to live up to her father's legacy before - she agonized over it, ran from it, nearly died for it - but she feels strangely ready now. Impending death really knows how to put things in perspective. So does love, and her love for Soul - for the entire resistance - is strong. She can finally say with certainty that her father's mistakes don't define her. Neither do her own mistakes. If anything, they drive her to be better, to fight harder.

After her run-in with Skynet, Maka is itching to make good on her promise to purge it from this world.

"You've got me."

He grins. "That'a girl."

Maka will save her father and win this war. But first, she has some unfinished business to attend to.

* * *

Maka visits Soul the next day in lock-up after convincing her friends - read: flock of mother hens - that she is strong enough to leave the infirmary and see Soul alone. On her way out, she hears Blake make a crude joke about her needing to work out her "sexual" tension. Her face is still hopelessly red.

She finds Soul in lock-up, which is really just an unused living quarters with bunks lining the walls; her father intended to use it eventually as they took in more strays. Her partner sits in the back corner on one of the beds, petting Dog who dozes idly by his side. Headphones hug his head - playing smooth jazz, she guesses - and mask her presence.

Even from her spot by the door, Maka can see his bruised knuckles from Skynet using him to beat her, or his black eye from Giriko hitting him with his gun. Blake at least had the decency to give him some clean, unbloodied clothes to wear that look like hospital scrubs. She almost laughs at his leather jacket, though - his badge of cool he refuses to take off, even if it's ruined with… well, her.

She is ready to choke up.

"You here to annoy me again, Star?" he calls without looking up. Well, he is part machine, so perhaps stealth is null and void with him. But at least he thinks she's Blake, which means the element of surprise is still on her side.

"S-Soul," she says, her voice still scratchy.

His body springs up and he hits his head on the top bunk. "Ugh, damn it," he groans before his eyes find her, and nothing can express the relief she feels to see that they're warm. He puts down his headphones. "Maka? Is that really you?"

Maka answers his question with a sloppy, tear-induced smile before rushing to meet him on the bed. His arms open to let her in and she gladly falls against him. Gently, he pulls her to his chest and holds her there as if she might break if he isn't careful. His fingers lightly brush the gauze on her neck, regarding it gravely, but she tugs his hand away. Skynet's hijacking has scarred him. It'll take some time to convince him that none of this was his fault. Luckily, they have time.

"I… I thought I killed you," he whispers into her hair. "Twice." She pulls back and quirks a brow at him, asking him to explain. "You were gone, Maka. You bled out in my arms. And when my hands burned your neck, you like, jolted and went limp again. I swear you stopped breathing." His body shudders as he relives that moment before he lets it go with a deep breath. "But I guess you're just too stubborn to die."

"Damn straight," she says. He chuckles lightly. "You can't get rid of me that easy."

"I think… I remember now." At this, she perks up, thinking about the memory she eavesdropped on between him and Wes. "Only bits and pieces, though."

"Like?"

"I remember dying," he says flatly. "Oh, and that I'm way older than you. Is that gonna be a problem?"

She snorts. Of all the things to point out after coming to terms with his own death. "No, stupid."

"Good." His eyes lose their warmness, but not in a way that frightens her - no, he has a ghost living in his eyes, and Maka has a feeling she knows who's tugging on his heartstrings.

"You think Wes is still alive?"

She pulls him closer. "I don't know."

"You remember what I told you when you asked me why I saved you that day in the studio?" Maka nods, she remembers. He told her he would've wanted someone to help him if he were in her shoes. "Wes was always there for me. I really took him for granted."

"He didn't think so," she offers, which he shrugs off. She decides not to push it.

Soul puts some space between them as he digs the ring and chain out of his jacket pocket. "He was right about one thing… no, two things. I am still alive. And this ring belongs to you," he says, clasping it behind her neck. His courage then shatters into a hopeless sputter as he blushes madly at his handiwork. "I mean, I'll take it back if you don't want it. I just thought -"

"Soul."

He sighs, resigned. "Yeah?"

"I love you, too." Maka takes his face in her hands and kisses him, slowly, relieved that he tastes nothing like metal - but embarrassed she even humored that thought. Then she loses herself in their kiss. Judging by Soul's soft moan, he feels the same.

"Love you," he mumbles against her lips. He probably thinks she didn't hear him back at the motel as he cried and begged for her to live.

She smiles. "I know."

He grins and pulls her into another kiss. One that is destined to end with dog slobber as Dog stirs from his slumber, but Maka is too lost in the moment to care.

Soul is not a part of their machine, he is so much more. Together, they will destroy Skynet and make a new world like the one she saw in her dreams. A world where Skynet burns.

This isn't the end, it's only the beginning.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

The end. _Or is it? _Due to time constraints (resbang hits _hard)_, I'm letting this "arc" of the story end here with room for a sequel. I just need time to breathe... and time to give this story the love it deserves. So, stay tuned... and thank you for reading!


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